The Eureka Experience

Several items in The Scientist over the past year have caught my interest. The most recent, by Kathryn S. Brown, is on what I have referred to as early as 1975 in lectures and articles as "the Eureka Feeling," which I insist is an example of intuition. In her article entitled "Excitement and Emotion Mark Scientists' Fleeting Moments of Discovery" (K.S. Brown, The Scientist, Nov. 25, 1996, page 16), she calls it the "Eureka!" moment. In the literature I found W.I.B. Beveridge, who discusses int

Written byVan Rensselaer Potter
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Several items in The Scientist over the past year have caught my interest. The most recent, by Kathryn S. Brown, is on what I have referred to as early as 1975 in lectures and articles as "the Eureka Feeling," which I insist is an example of intuition. In her article entitled "Excitement and Emotion Mark Scientists' Fleeting Moments of Discovery" (K.S. Brown, The Scientist, Nov. 25, 1996, page 16), she calls it the "Eureka!" moment.

In the literature I found W.I.B. Beveridge, who discusses intuition in his book The Art of Scientific Investigation (first published in 1950 by W.W. Norton, New York, reissued in 1960 by Vintage Books, New York). On page 97 he noted, "There is a fairly general, though not universal, agreement that intuitions arise from the subconscious activities of the mind, which has continued to turn over the problem even though perhaps the mind is no longer ...

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