On the topic of knowing too much

Back in 2012 I read a news story with great interest. It was the story about how a Swedish chemistry professor had help from his ten-year-old son to solve a complicated problem, which he had worked on for eight years with no luck.
As the professor Sven Hovmöller said about the problem and the son in the article: "Linus’s main contribution was coming at it with an absolutely clear mind, being smart and able to put the puzzle together. I sort of knew too many things and when I tried to do it myself, your brain just gets exhausted by all the different things you keep in your head at the same time. With a fresh, empty brain so to speak, you can do something. When solving problems, it is always good to have someone to discuss it with."
I value the story so highly, because it is so closely related to one of my favorite quotes; in the words of Henry Ford:

I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can not be done.

Because as Hovmöller's example indicates: who knows, how many of the problems of the world we would be able to solve, if we were better at asking those who do not know what cannot be done.
(Translated from Noget om at vide for meget, originally published October 3rd, 2012)