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James T. Kirk's infamous gambit in Starfleet's impossible to win Kobayashi Maru test was to redefine the problem into a challenge he could beat.
Interestingly, an article titled Shifts In Algorithm Design, says something like the same gambit is the modern method of solving algorithmic problems.
In the past:
I, Dick, recall the “good old days of theory.” When I first started working in theory—a sort of double meaning—I could only use deterministic methods. I needed to get the exact answer, no approximations. I had to solve the problem that I was given—no changing the problem.
In the good old days of theory, we got a problem, we worked on it, and sometimes we solved it. Nothing shifty, no changing the problem or modifying the goal.
Today:
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