Talk:Eureka effect

New Paragraph
Hi, I have added a paragraph about the origin of the term, hope no one objects. I hope to add more paragraphs soon. Quasihuman (talk) 12:28, 26 March 2010 (UTC) I have now added a section on the cognitive science of the eureka effect, I hope to add more in this section soonQuasihuman (talk) 21:46, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

To do
Hi, I thought I might add a list of what I see as areas needing work:


 * 1) Expand Other theories, perhaps putting in something about gestalt, more on Bühler perhaps, if someone can find an English reference setting out his theories on this.
 * 2) Add Expand section of examples
 * 3) Add section on "in popular culture" if enough examples can be found
 * 4) Use citation templates for references

Feel free to ignore this or add to this as you see fit. I would like to have more editors working on this article (so far it seems to be just me) Quasihuman (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Revising Examples
I am thinking of removing the examples section & introducing a "The eureka effect in science" section for a more detailed discussion of the impact of the eureka effect on scientific discovery, and perhaps at some later point, a section of the eureka effect on other fields. I've become a little suspicious of having a list of examples, as I think it would be hard to draw the line, and we could end up with a very big list. Any opinions?Quasihuman (talk) 22:25, 20 May 2010 (UTC) Some examples are significant. I'm thinking of when a teacher in electrical engineering once showed us a picture which supposedly was the Eureka moment inspiration for the inventor of the 'phase-locked loop' circuit. It was like a cartoon image of a fox chasing a chicken in circles over a fence (ie. fox jumps over fence always just missing the chicken, which has gone over the fence to the side that the fox was on a moment ago etc. etc.) Signed JohnsonL623 (talk) 10:02, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to edit the article yourself if you think you could add more examples. It sounds like an interesting example, but I would be wary about introducing too much technical details that are not directly related to the topic of the article. Try to find a source for this (a textbook or website for example). Quasihuman (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are some significant examples from the history of science: 1. Archimedes' bathtub (the original "Eureka!" moment) 2. Newton's apple 3. Charles Darwin ("and I can remember the very spot in the road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the solution occurred to me...") 4. Albert Einstein (special relativity, 1905: "a storm broke loose in my mind" while looking back at a clocktower while riding in a streetcar in Bern; general relativity, 1907: "the happiest thought of my life" was his elevator thought experiment and the equivalence principle.)

And examples from engineering: 5. Nikola Tesla (multiple examples from his writings, most notably the design for a workable AC induction motor which he said was occasioned by reciting Faust: "At that age, I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe’s ‘Faust’. The sun was just setting and reminded me of the glorious passage, ‘Sie ruckt und weicht, der Tag ist uberlebt, Dort eilt sie hin und fordert neues Leben. Oh, da kein Flugel mich vom Boden hebt Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben! Ein schöner Traum indessen sie entweicht, Ach, au des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht Kein körperlicher Flügel sich gesellen!’ As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightening and in an instant the truth was revealed.") 6. Philo Farnsworth (invented television while plowing a potato field in Idaho when the back-and-forth motion of the till made him realize an electron beam could scan images line by line.) 7. Percy Spencer (microwave oven, realized a candy bar melted in his pocket while working next to a magnetron.) 8. Kary Mullis (invented PCR while driving home at night and talking out loud.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.31.105.162 (talk) 23:18, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Back to eureka
I went ahead and moved (by re-merging) the article to Eureka effect. Eureka effect gives it better punctuation, and Google hits seems to give it to the more common name. However, no prejudice against a requested move if the other title is preferred. Cheers,   A rbitrarily 0    ( talk ) 18:34, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Aha! Effect
In the opening section, shouldn't it now be referred to as the Eureka! Effect? It seems odd that the title is Eureka effect but then there is only a small mention that it is also known as this. I realise the article has just been merged, and don't want to step on any toes so thought I should bring it here before making the changes. -ross616- (talk) 18:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I almost agree with you. It should be referred to as the Eureka effect, because that is the article's name.  Lova Falk     talk   18:42, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
 * So is that an ok to make the changes? I propse this: The Eureka! effect, named for a story relating to the Greek polymath Archimedes, refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. The Eureka! effect is sometimes also known as the Aha! effect. The Eureka! Effect got its name... (insert bit about Archimedes already in the article)

As far as I can see, this is the easiest way to do it as we can keep all the old citations and information but it still makes sense. 07:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by -ross616- (talk • contribs)
 * Apart from the exclamation mark I agree with changing the first sentence. However, I would do it like this:


 * The Eureka effect, also known as the Aha! effect, refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept. The Eureka effect got its name... (insert bit about Archimedes already in the article)  Lova Falk     talk   07:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Oprah's view of "Aha!"
Oprah's view of "Aha!" sounds very similar to Repentance, which means to change after one's recognition of past wrongs. In other words, if an individual's life doesn't work out, "try try again... but this time in a different way." Enlightenment may be considered too. Aha! 140.254.226.244 (talk) 15:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Clarification of valence
This article seems to focus primarily on the analytical aspects of the effect, whereas the "Oprah route" provides a minimal amount of discussion of a more affective view of the effect. My feeling is that the article would benefit from a more balanced exposition of these two perspectives. While I don't put a lot of stock in the Oprah doctrine, I do feel there's noteworthy validity to that perspective, and I don't see that well-represented here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.254.117 (talk) 18:31, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

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Oprah section
is the giant and obvious ad for oprah at the bottom really necessary? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Camdoodlebop (talk • contribs) 20:23, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

I Agree with the poster above, it's not science/psychology. She has brought no new ideas or theories forwards and chances are the accrediting of Oprah rather than a member of her production team. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.47.3 (talk) 11:35, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

ERP studies
I've done a bunch of editing in the section on ERP studies, and rather than justify it all in the edit summary, I thought I'd better set out the clarifications here:


 * Pinyin spelling: A study author is cited as "Qui," which is not a pinyin syllable. The published study gives the name as "Qiu," which is.
 * Mechanics/punctuation.
 * I added transitional language to identify the different studies.
 * I dropped summaries that were repetitious or vague.
 * I streamlined some argumentation that was, pardon my saying so, kind of crudely wedged in.
 * It goes without saying that an ERP has a strong activation.
 * Cognitions elicit ERPs and sensor data reflects cognition, not the other way around.
 * Most of all, references to "logogrAphs" with an "A" are gone.

Let me go into that:

eritain (talk) 21:40, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
 * There are logo*griphs* with an "I" (riddles about the form of a word), and then there are logo*graphs* with an "A" (a somewhat accurate way of describing the Chinese writing system).
 * A language is not its writing system. Just because Chinese was involved doesn't mean the Chinese writing system was involved. You could make riddles about the visual composition of a Chinese character, just as you can make riddles about the alphabetic, not always very phonetic composition of an English word; or you can make riddles about the sounds of words without reference to the writing system.
 * From the abstracts that I could find, some of the ERP studies used Chinese logo*griphs,* but it was not clear whether they used Chinese logo*graphs* or not. I don't have full-text access without paying ripoff publisher prices, unfortunately. If anyone does, they're welcome to speak up.
 * I removed text that cast doubt on the applicability of research findings from experiments just because they were conducted in Chinese. On the one hand, if Chinese writing was used, yes, there are differences in the reading process vs English that show up on an EEG. But that can only help to distinguish between signals related to reading and signals related to the insight/aha process itself.