Mathematicians and physicists are trained to always identify the boundaries and operating constraints, while solving a problem.
And yet, the best ones perhaps didn’t pay any heed to those boundaries.
They started from first principles.
The minute you start your problem with identifying the boundary, you have closed some doors. Closed some perspective. Perhaps closed your mind too.
“We only have this much money”
“We don’t have more than these people”
“This technology doesn’t exist”
“No one has done this before”
“We have never done this before”
The best solutions never defined the starting boundaries.
They didn’t even acknowledge their existence.
It is when their learning become a hazard to their thinking. Their past, their learning, their bias (dheerajgarg.com/2016/03/01/bias/ ) becomes a barrier in their own success.
When you are stuck with the same result and you cannot identify what is it that you need to change, then, ‘You should test the boundaries, for, the world is completely subjective’.