MARK BEEMAN
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
Eureka moments may seem unpredictable and unreplicable. But there are ways to coax these inspired ideas from their hiding places. One of the best is to take a break from thinking about a problem or dilemma.
They are linked to the story of Archimedes and the gold crown ( when he realized while taking a bath that he can use displaced water to assess the density of the king's crown and, therefore, its gold content).
...not distractions. Activities like checking email and watching TV stop our background thinking and do not let the mind wander in places that make for creative insight.
- Creativity is closely related to play, not work, so do not have an agenda.
- Lighten up and let yourself loose, free to roam and explore.
- The mind left to itself starts to work creatively in the background at a subconscious level.
RELATED IDEAS
Narratives of scientific discovery get polished after the fact.
- Newton was an old man when he told his friend, William Stukeley, that his thinking on the nature of gravity "was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood." The adage of "the apple fell on his head" came with time, but is not historically correct.
- Archimedes did have a eureka moment while he lowered himself in the bath, but the part that he streaked across Syracuse is probably not true.
This will serve you well in creative thinking as long as you question your assumptions and try to find patterns where there aren't any.
After a problem has been examined and analysed, creative thinkers often hit a roadblock, which is actually an ‘incubation period’ where the brain works in the background to process information at an unconscious level.
This results in an ‘aha’ or a ‘Eureka!’ moment when the solution or idea pops inside the head later when we are not consciously thinking about it.