The trainers quickly discovered that it was impossible to predict who their best pupils would be—not even professional mathematicians were a sure bet; they often lost patience with the details—but it was very easy to spot the talented ones once they got started. As a general rule of thumb, for example, music teachers proved to be particularly adept. And much to the project leaders' astonishment (this being the 1950s) women often turned out to be more proficient than men at worrying about the details while simultaneously keeping the big picture in mind. One of the project's best programming
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