Nonlinear life

Just finished a home exam, 48 hours long. My instructor's course, Nonlinear Optics. Three questions, 48 hours, honor code applies. He sent an email the day before -
"Students, you have 3 questions in the examination. It takes 2 hours to solve each one, but I give you 2 days."
It was a joke, of course. Some of the questions, you just can't SOLVE. Nonlinear science is so deep you could dig for days and not see the bottom. What you do in the exam is make your physicist head work hard and do your best. That's what life is about, - it's too complex, you can't solve it, you can't develop a general algorithm, it's too complex. You use your head and do your best.

There's this temptation of course to consult with your friend. Brainstorming is often more efficient but he might distract from independent unusual ideas and deeper thought. But then again two people separately have a higher chance of taking a dead wrong direction than together. I chose to go alone and I think it was a good idea.