Carl Honore

Your best ideas, those eureka moments that turn the world upside down, seldom come when you're juggling emails, rushing to meet the 5 P.M. deadline or straining to make your voice heard in a high-stress meeting. They come when you're walking the dog, soaking in the bath or swinging in a hammock.

Canadian Journalist

Vaclav Smil

We insist on celebrating lone heroic path-finders, but even the most admired and the most successful inventors are part of a more remarkable supply chain of innovators who are largely ignored for the simpler mythology of one man or one eureka moment.

Czechoslovakian Scientist

John Tiffany

When I realised, on 'The Straits,' that physical work in the theatre takes much longer than directing scenes, it was like a eureka moment. If you want to work physically, you have to accommodate it, and it takes a disproportionate amount of time.

English Director

Antoine Arnault

In many competitive worlds like luxury, things are done behind closed doors and with secrecy, so one day I had a eureka moment: for one weekend we show everything, full transparency, forget about business or commerce and showcase our work.

French Businessman

Jason Silva

Creativity and insight almost always involve an experience of acute pattern recognition: the eureka moment in which we perceive the interconnection between disparate concepts or ideas to reveal something new.

American Director

Jodie Foster

With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.

American Actress

Roger Penrose

People think of these eureka moments and my feeling is that they tend to be little things, a little realisation and then a little realisation built on that.

English Physicist

John Williams

There are occasionally eureka moments - off the top of my head, maybe Darth Vader's theme, you know, the imperial march.

American Composer

Anish Kapoor

Work grows out of other work, and there are very few eureka moments.

Indian Artist

Archimedes

Greek Mathematician

Use 'eureka' to express a successful discovery or a sudden insight after much effort.

Victory Exclamation

'Eureka' has Greek roots, famously used by Archimedes when discovering water displacement.

Historical Origin

It's informal, suitable for casual conversation rather than formal or academic writing.

Casual Usage

Eureka is specifically a city in Northwest California, known for Victorian architecture.

Geographical Location

Eureka has a cultural significance in California and can evoke local pride in conversation.

Cultural Identity

When used as a city name, 'Eureka' doesn't imply the joy or sudden discovery the interjection does.

Not Always Joyful

 And he recorded all these conversations and tried to figure out where the most important ideas happened. And when we think about the classic image of the scientist in the lab, we have this image -- you know, they're poring over the microscope, and they see something in the tissue sample, and -- "Eureka!" -- they've got the idea.

Where good ideas come...

 but rather his epic prose poem "Eureka," in which he expounded his own personal view of the cosmographical nature of the universe. In his stories, he would describe in fantastical technical detail machines and contraptions, and nowhere was he more influential in this than in his short story,

How centuries of sci-fi...

 The wheel is turning. Okay, step back a minute. I mean, it's really not news for me to tell you that innovation emerges out of groups. You know, we've heard that this week -- this romantic notion of the lone genius with the "eureka!" moment that changes the world

Chris Anderson: How...

 this has us treading water just to stay afloat, while a promotion focus instead has us swimming in the right direction. It's just a matter of how far we can advance. Well, I had my very own eureka moment when it dawned on me that this concept of promotion

The real reason female...

 And he has his eureka moment. In a flash, he realizes how species could emerge and evolve slowly, through this process of the survival of the fittest. It all comes to him, he writes it all down, every single important element of the theory of evolution,

A powerful way to...

 emerged the most fantastic music, and I think there was just a miracle moment, really, Derek, when you realized that all the sounds you hear in the world out there is something that you can copy on the keyboard. That was the great eureka moment.

Derek Paravicini and...

 we took a giant step back and looked at the problem from a wider angle and then Eureka what was the problem became a solution what was the bag became a feature now you can see how accurate the sensor is as soon as I attach the wheel

Over-engineering a...

 What is it? How is it made? Why was it made? How is it used? And these were important lessons to me when I subsequently became a professional art historian. My kind of eureka moment came a few years later,

Thomas P. Campbell:...

 They're considered unproductive because they're warm. This was my eureka moment. Not everyone can say that their careers started with a pile of. But I'm pretty pleased to be able to do that.

How Finding Blue Whale...

 what is it how is it made why was it made how is it used and these are important lessons to me it when i substitute storian my kind of eureka moment came a few years later when i was