I may disagree with you on the value of N-queens as a case study in this particular case, but your general statement is definitely fair: You never know where in

I may disagree with you on the value of N-queens as a case study in this particular case, but your general statement is definitely fair: You never know where inspiration may come from. Many years back, my PhD advisor told me the following story: Back in the 70s, he had come up with some sort of solution to the N-queens problem and had sent a (snail) mail to Don Knuth describing it. Knuth responded back with a single sentence: ``I am fed up with the N-queens problem.''