The Eureka Factor

The Eureka Factor PDF Author: John Kounios
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679645292
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a book perfect for readers of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, David Eagleman’s Incognito, and Leonard Mlodinow’s Subliminal, the cognitive neuroscientists who discovered how the brain has aha moments—sudden creative insights—explain how they happen, when we need them, and how we can have more of them to enrich our lives and empower personal and professional success. Eureka or aha moments are sudden realizations that expand our understanding of the world and ourselves, conferring both personal growth and practical advantage. Such creative insights, as psychological scientists call them, were what conveyed an important discovery in the science of genetics to Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, the melody of a Beatles ballad to Paul McCartney, and an understanding of the cause of human suffering to the Buddha. But these moments of clarity are not given only to the famous. Anyone can have them. In The Eureka Factor, John Kounios and Mark Beeman explain how insights arise and what the scientific research says about stimulating more of them. They discuss how various conditions affect the likelihood of your having an insight, when insight is helpful and when deliberate methodical thought is better suited to a task, what the relationship is between insight and intuition, and how the brain’s right hemisphere contributes to creative thought. Written in a lively, engaging style, this book goes beyond scientific principles to offer productive techniques for realizing your creative potential—at home and at work. The authors provide compelling anecdotes to illustrate how eureka experiences can be a key factor in your life. Attend a dinner party with Christopher Columbus to learn why we need insights. Go to a baseball game with the director of a classic Disney Pixar movie to learn about one important type of aha moment. Observe the behind-the-scenes arrangements for an Elvis Presley concert to learn why the timing of insights is crucial. Accessible and compelling, The Eureka Factor is a fascinating look at the human brain and its seemingly infinite capacity to surprise us. Praise for The Eureka Factor “Delicious . . . In The Eureka Factor, neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman give many other examples of [a] kind of lightning bolt of insight, but back this up with the latest brain-imaging research.”—Newsweek “An incredible accomplishment . . . [The Eureka Factor] is not just a chronicle of the journey that numerous scientists (including the authors) have taken to examine insight but is also a fascinating guide to how advances in science are made in general. Messrs. Kounios and Beeman examine how a parade of clever experiments can be designed to answer specific questions and rule out alternative possibilities. . . . Wonderful ideas appear as if out of nowhere—and we are delighted.”—The Wall Street Journal “An excellent title for those interested in neuroscience or creativity . . . The writing is engaging and readable, mixing stories of famous perceptions with explanations of how such revelations happen.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A lively and accessible ‘brain’ book with wide appeal.”—Booklist “[An] ingenious, thoughtful update on how the mind works.”—Kirkus Reviews “The Eureka Factor presents a fascinating and illuminating account of the creative process and how to foster it.”—James J. Heckman, Nobel laureate in economics

The Eureka Factor

The Eureka Factor PDF Author: John Kounios
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0679645292
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
In a book perfect for readers of Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, David Eagleman’s Incognito, and Leonard Mlodinow’s Subliminal, the cognitive neuroscientists who discovered how the brain has aha moments—sudden creative insights—explain how they happen, when we need them, and how we can have more of them to enrich our lives and empower personal and professional success. Eureka or aha moments are sudden realizations that expand our understanding of the world and ourselves, conferring both personal growth and practical advantage. Such creative insights, as psychological scientists call them, were what conveyed an important discovery in the science of genetics to Nobel laureate Barbara McClintock, the melody of a Beatles ballad to Paul McCartney, and an understanding of the cause of human suffering to the Buddha. But these moments of clarity are not given only to the famous. Anyone can have them. In The Eureka Factor, John Kounios and Mark Beeman explain how insights arise and what the scientific research says about stimulating more of them. They discuss how various conditions affect the likelihood of your having an insight, when insight is helpful and when deliberate methodical thought is better suited to a task, what the relationship is between insight and intuition, and how the brain’s right hemisphere contributes to creative thought. Written in a lively, engaging style, this book goes beyond scientific principles to offer productive techniques for realizing your creative potential—at home and at work. The authors provide compelling anecdotes to illustrate how eureka experiences can be a key factor in your life. Attend a dinner party with Christopher Columbus to learn why we need insights. Go to a baseball game with the director of a classic Disney Pixar movie to learn about one important type of aha moment. Observe the behind-the-scenes arrangements for an Elvis Presley concert to learn why the timing of insights is crucial. Accessible and compelling, The Eureka Factor is a fascinating look at the human brain and its seemingly infinite capacity to surprise us. Praise for The Eureka Factor “Delicious . . . In The Eureka Factor, neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman give many other examples of [a] kind of lightning bolt of insight, but back this up with the latest brain-imaging research.”—Newsweek “An incredible accomplishment . . . [The Eureka Factor] is not just a chronicle of the journey that numerous scientists (including the authors) have taken to examine insight but is also a fascinating guide to how advances in science are made in general. Messrs. Kounios and Beeman examine how a parade of clever experiments can be designed to answer specific questions and rule out alternative possibilities. . . . Wonderful ideas appear as if out of nowhere—and we are delighted.”—The Wall Street Journal “An excellent title for those interested in neuroscience or creativity . . . The writing is engaging and readable, mixing stories of famous perceptions with explanations of how such revelations happen.”—Library Journal (starred review) “A lively and accessible ‘brain’ book with wide appeal.”—Booklist “[An] ingenious, thoughtful update on how the mind works.”—Kirkus Reviews “The Eureka Factor presents a fascinating and illuminating account of the creative process and how to foster it.”—James J. Heckman, Nobel laureate in economics

The Eureka Effect

The Eureka Effect PDF Author: David N Perkins
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393322552
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
Breakthrough thinking comes as a sudden, seemingly unaccountable moment of inspiration: From Archimedes' discovery in the bathtub of the principle of water displacement to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, from Brunelleschi's development of perspective drawing to the Impressionist revolution, from the taming of fire to the creation of the laser, it has shaped and advanced civilization.

Eureka

Eureka PDF Author: Gavin Weightman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300192088
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book Here

Book Description
While the discoveries of scientists have provided vital knowledge which has made innovation possible, it is more often than not the amateur who enjoys the "eureka moment" when an invention works for the first time. Weightman tells fascinating stories of struggle, rivalry, and the ingenuity of both famous inventors and hundreds of forgotten people, and offers a fresh take on the making of our modern world.

Isaac Newton and Gravity

Isaac Newton and Gravity PDF Author: Alex Woolf
Publisher: Eureka Moment!
ISBN: 9781912904051
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
This narrative non-fiction series tells the stories of great moments in science as if through the eyes of the scientists and inventors themselves. The stories are told like an adventure, with all the dramas, missteps and struggles along the way, ultimately leading to the 'Eureka' moment of triumph. The books use all the tropes of fiction - dialogue, action, suspense - to tell true-life tales of human discovery and achievement. Readers will discover what happened during these milestones of science - but crucially, they will also be able to imagine what it might have felt like to be at the cutting edge of progress.The narratives are interspersed with short comic strips dramatising significant episodes and boxes to explain scientific concepts, as well as historical information to set the story in a wider context. The end matter contains a timeline, a glossary and an index.In Isaac Newton and Gravity we follow the eccentric scientist as he develops his theory of gravity which will fundamentally alter the way that humans think about the universe and how it works.

Human Frontiers

Human Frontiers PDF Author: Michael Bhaskar
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262545101
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Get Book Here

Book Description
Why has the flow of big, world-changing ideas slowed down? A provocative look at what happens next at the frontiers of human knowledge. The history of humanity is the history of big ideas that expand our frontiers—from the wheel to space flight, cave painting to the massively multiplayer game, monotheistic religion to quantum theory. And yet for the past few decades, apart from a rush of new gadgets and the explosion of digital technology, world-changing ideas have been harder to come by. Since the 1970s, big ideas have happened incrementally—recycled, focused in narrow bands of innovation. In this provocative book, Michael Bhaskar looks at why the flow of big, world-changing ideas has slowed, and what this means for the future. Bhaskar argues that the challenge at the frontiers of knowledge has arisen not because we are unimaginative and bad at realizing big ideas but because we have already pushed so far. If we compare the world of our great-great-great-grandparents to ours today, we can see how a series of transformative ideas revolutionized almost everything in just a century and a half. But recently, because of short-termism, risk aversion, and fractious decision making, we have built a cautious, unimaginative world. Bhaskar shows how we can start to expand the frontier again by thinking big—embarking on the next Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Apollo mission—and embracing change.

SNAP

SNAP PDF Author: Katherine Ramsland
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616144653
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sudden flashes of inspiration have triggered many discoveries and inventions throughout history. Are such aha! moments merely random, or is there a way to train the brain to harness these seemingly unpredictable creative insights? This fascinating overview of the latest neuroscience findings on spontaneous thought processes, or "snaps," describes how everyone—not just geniuses—can learn to improve the likelihood of their own "eureka" moments by adopting certain rewarding attitudes and habits. As the author explains, snaps are much more than new ideas. Snaps are insights plus momentum—they instantly compel or snap us toward action. They often occur after ordinary problem solving hits an impasse. We may feel stuck, but while we’re in a quandary, the brain is rebooting. Then, when we least expect it, the solution pops into our heads. She describes the results of numerous scientific experiments studying this phenomenon. She also recounts intriguing stories of people in diverse disciplines who have had a snap experience. Both the research and the stories illustrate that it’s possible to enhance our facility for snap moments by training ourselves to scan, sift, and solve. In the emerging economy, businesses and individuals need new strategies, and it’s clear that just thinking harder no longer works. People who can snap are often a step ahead: they have a vigilance advantage from exercising brain cells that build mental agility. While snapping is rewarding, fun, and good for improving our mental skills, it’s also much more: people who snap life-changing ideas that affect many others will redirect our future. Written in an accessible, jargon-free narrative that weaves together the latest research with illuminating stories of innovative people, this book teaches us how to cultivate our own inner epiphanies to gain an edge in our imaginations, our careers, our goals—indeed, in every aspect of our lives.

The Reason for the Darkness of the Night

The Reason for the Darkness of the Night PDF Author: John Tresch
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374717443
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Get Book Here

Book Description
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize | Finalist for the 2022 Edgar Award Winner of the 2021 Quinn Award An innovative biography of Edgar Allan Poe—highlighting his fascination and feuds with science. Decade after decade, Edgar Allan Poe remains one of the most popular American writers. He is beloved around the world for his pioneering detective fiction, tales of horror, and haunting, atmospheric verse. But what if there was another side to the man who wrote “The Raven” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”? In The Reason for the Darkness of the Night, John Tresch offers a bold new biography of a writer whose short, tortured life continues to fascinate. Shining a spotlight on an era when the lines separating entertainment, speculation, and scientific inquiry were blurred, Tresch reveals Poe’s obsession with science and lifelong ambition to advance and question human knowledge. Even as he composed dazzling works of fiction, he remained an avid and often combative commentator on new discoveries, publishing and hustling in literary scenes that also hosted the era’s most prominent scientists, semi-scientists, and pseudo-intellectual rogues. As one newspaper put it, “Mr. Poe is not merely a man of science—not merely a poet—not merely a man of letters. He is all combined; and perhaps he is something more.” Taking us through his early training in mathematics and engineering at West Point and the tumultuous years that followed, Tresch shows that Poe lived, thought, and suffered surrounded by science—and that many of his most renowned and imaginative works can best be understood in its company. He cast doubt on perceived certainties even as he hungered for knowledge, and at the end of his life delivered a mind-bending lecture on the origins of the universe that would win the admiration of twentieth-century physicists. Pursuing extraordinary conjectures and a unique aesthetic vision, he remained a figure of explosive contradiction: he gleefully exposed the hoaxes of the era’s scientific fraudsters even as he perpetrated hoaxes himself. Tracing Poe’s hard and brilliant journey, The Reason for the Darkness of the Night is an essential new portrait of a writer whose life is synonymous with mystery and imagination—and an entertaining, erudite tour of the world of American science just as it was beginning to come into its own.

The Eureka! Moment

The Eureka! Moment PDF Author: Rupert Lee
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136714766
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
Genius, Einstein said, is 99% perspiration. The other 1%--the moment of inspiration and insight--provides some of the best stories of our time. From superconductors to the Big Bang, the best tales of scientific revelation are collected in The Eureka! Moment , an addictive tour through the modern world's key scientific discoveries. Rupert Lee's accounts transport readers to the moment of realization: the inventor's laboratory, his or her doubts, initial setbacks, feuds with other scientists, and finally the shock and excitement of triumph. Together, these biographies of inspiration paint an astonishing picture of human ingenuity. In physics we learn how scientists for Bell Labs inadvertently supplied proof for the Big Bang theory while trying to eliminate the background hiss in their microwave antenna. In astronomy we see Hubble's recognition that the universe is expanding, not static, as well as the fortuitous discovery of Pluto by a farm boy from Kansas. We join Watson and Crick as they decode the double helix of DNA, and Karl von Frisch as he deciphers the honeybee's waggle dance. Skillfully written to clarify concepts from quarks to relativity to antibodies for the lay reader, The Eureka Moment is a must-read for anyone interested in popular science and the history of invention.

How to Commercialize Chemical Technologies for a Sustainable Future

How to Commercialize Chemical Technologies for a Sustainable Future PDF Author: Timothy J. Clark
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119604842
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 49

Get Book Here

Book Description
The definitive guide for scientific entrepreneurs commercializing sustainable technologies in the chemical sector Lacking the considerable resources of multinational chemical companies, entrepreneurs face a unique set of risks and challenges. How to Commercialize Chemical Technologies for a Sustainable Future is targeted at innovators who are embarking on the entrepreneurial path with their sustainable chemical technology but are unsure of what steps to take. This first-of-its-kind resource features contributions from a diverse team of expert authors, including engineers, venture capitalists, marketing specialists, intellectual property professionals, regulatory experts, industry practitioners, and many others. Accessible and highly practical, this real-world guide covers each step of the technology commercialization process, from market landscape analysis and financing to scale-up and strategic partnering. Throughout the book, effective tactics and strategies for growing a new venture are supported by case studies highlighting the economic and environmental impact of successful commercialization, and identifying the common mistakes that lead to lost opportunities. Filled with invaluable advice and actionable steps, this book: Uses valuation concepts, tools, and examples to demonstrate that for a chemical technology to be sustainable it must not only have market value but also confer benefits to human well-being and the environment Offers templates and tools for understanding what customers need, who the competition is and how to successfully differentiate your product to those customers Describes how to practically advance your technology from conception all the way to commercial demonstration Presents advantages and disadvantages of strategic partnering from the perspective of the start-up and the larger industrial partner, along with strategies to mitigate risks within a partnership Provides an overview of the legal regulatory requirements for bringing new chemicals to market in several key geographic regions, as well as the impact of public policy on commercialization Offers insights and practical strategies on intellectual property management, raising investment, and operationalizing a startup company How to Commercialize Chemical Technologies for a Sustainable Future is essential reading for budding entrepreneurs in chemistry, materials science, and chemical engineering looking to bring their sustainable technologies to market. It is also a valuable reference for investors, policymakers, regulators, and other professionals.

The Four Lenses of Innovation

The Four Lenses of Innovation PDF Author: Rowan Gibson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118740246
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
Ever wonder where big, breakthrough ideas come from? How do innovators manage to spot the opportunities for industry revolution that everyone else seems to miss? Contrary to popular belief, innovation is not some mystical art that’s forbidden to mere mortals. The Four Lenses of Innovation thoroughly debunks this pervasive myth by delivering what we’ve long been hoping for: the news that innovation is systematic, it’s methodical, and we can all achieve it. By asking how the world’s top innovators—Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and many others—came up with their game-changing ideas, bestselling author Rowan Gibson identifies four key business perspectives that will enable you to discover groundbreaking opportunities for innovation and growth: Challenging Orthodoxies—What if the dominant conventions in your field, market, or industry are outdated, unnecessary, or just plain wrong? Harnessing Trends—Where are the shifts and discontinuities that will, now and in the future, provide the energy you need for a major leap forward? Leveraging Resources—How can you arrange existing skills and assets into new combinations that add up to more than the sum of their parts? Understanding Needs—What are the unmet needs and frustrations that everyone else is simply ignoring? Other books promise the keys to innovation—this one delivers them. With a unique full-color design, thought-provoking examples, and features like the 8-Step Model for Building a Breakthrough, The Four Lenses of Innovation will teach you how to reverse-engineer creative genius and make radical business innovation an everyday reality inside your organization. “Rowan Gibson has done a superb job of ‘unpacking’ what it takes to innovate.” —Philip Kotler, S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University “Can you develop an innovative mind? Yes, you can. And this book is the manual.” —John and Doris Naisbitt, authors of China’s Megatrends and The Global Game Change “An excellent piece of work for practitioners and organizations who seek to have innovation as part of their DNA.” —Camille Mirshokrai, Managing Director of Leadership Development, and Partner at Accenture “Rowan Gibson’s The Four Lenses of Innovation will inspire you to think big, look afresh at the challenges you face, and take bold action to change the world.” —Robert B. Tucker, author of Driving Growth Through Innovation