[JackFr]

I was working as a programmer at the NIH for a senior scientist who was an MD & math PhD. In the course of the work he was doing, we came across a differential equation that needed solving. My undergraduate math degree was not enough to crack it in a day. I tried Mathematica, which also choked on it (probably should have tried Mathematica first.) My boss spent a couple of hours and came up with no explicit solution. I was preparing to move forward with numerical approach, but my boss made a phone call to a friend who came into his office and copied the problem off the whiteboard.

Two days later he had an explicit solution based on two really non-obvious (bizarre) substitutions. I came away very, very impressed. The guy earned a 'we are indebted to ...' footnote in the paper.

I guess the point is someone has to come up with the tricks.