Hi Dien,

What is the answer?

"What if he was riding a wave of light, and held a flashlight -- what would happen to the light from the flashlight?"

Would the light from the flashlight he is holding travel at the same speed... or twice as fast, what? I'm thinking same speed... but not sure.

Thanks,

Andrew

> Hi Julie!

> Julie, I've researched this topic too,
> especially when I was getting my grounding
> as a scientist....

> Those flashes of insight, those sudden
> crystallizing moments, when all you have
> worked towards hits you in a blinding flash
> of clarity....

> They are euphoric too, when you realize you
> finally have the answer you've spent all
> that time seeking!

> Among famous scientists and mathematicians,
> it seems to me that one who took some time
> to analyze this phenomenon is the
> mathematician Henri Poincare.... Here's a
> summary of his insights (taken from here
> )....

> Based on his own experiences, Poincare
> concluded that these "eureka!"
> moments had these things in common....

> * They came after a period of conscious
> work (thinking about the problem), followed
> by a period of "unconscious work"
> (this may happen after a sleep, or after a
> few days not actively thinking about the
> problem)....

> * After the period of unconscious work,
> sometimes some further conscious work is
> needed to further clarify the idea and put
> it on a firm foothold....

> * He concluded the "unconscious"
> part of the work was not something merely
> mechanical, but used intelligent
> sub-conscious processes in your mind....

> * When the unconscious brings the
> "eureka!" idea back to the
> conscious mind, it is sometimes not fruitful
> (it may even turn out in the end to be
> incorrect), but it was nevertheless
> promising or elegant in some way....

> * What the unconscious mind brings to the
> conscious mind is not necessarily always the
> final solution, but a highly promising
> "point of departure" to start
> working from....

> Here's a VERY interesting example of this
> process. I don't know if anyone here is
> familiar with benzene, which is a chemical
> compound consisting of 6 carbon atoms and 6
> hydrogen atoms linked together....

> Back in the 19th century, they didn't know
> the structure of benzene, of how these atoms
> linked to one another. However, a young
> German chemist by the name of Friedrich
> August Kekule was working on the problem,
> when he took an afternoon nap.

> In his dream, long chains of carbon and
> hydrogen atoms were twisting and turning in
> a snake-like motion....

> Suddenly, he saw one of these snake-like
> chains of atoms turn into a circle, as if it
> was grabbing its own tail!

> He awoke, and he had come up with the
> chemical structure for benzene, as a result
> of the workings of his sub-conscious
> mind.... Since that was the answer to the
> puzzle they were looking for -- the chemical
> structure of benzene is a hexagonal ring of
> carbon atoms, with one hydrogen atom
> attached to each carbon atom.

> I know a lot about this type of creative
> process from the writings of scientists
> (particularly physicists), yet I believe the
> process of creativity is the same no matter
> what field it is you are talking about....
> Whether solving a scientific problem or a
> business one.

> I think a good approach is to think about
> the problem consciously, turn it around and
> every way in your head.... For a few hours
> or a few days (depending on how difficult
> the problem is)....

> Then, give it a period of rest. Perhaps
> overnight when you sleep, or even leave it
> alone for a few days....

> If you've given your sub-conscious mind the
> "raw material" to work with, some
> promising possibilities may arise in a
> "eureka!"-like moment.... Often
> when you least expect it. :)

> Well, I know I meandered a bit Julie, but I
> hope your research goes well.... Please
> share some of your results here.... :)

> Regarding Einstein, I've read that the
> "seed" for the theory of
> relativity came from thoughts he had as a
> teenager.... He used to think about what it
> would be like to ride on a wave of light,
> and then look back on another wave of
> light.... What would it look like?

> What if he was riding a wave of light, and
> held a flashlight -- what would happen to
> the light from the flashlight?

> These thought-experiments were the
> foundation to the theory of relativity. (One
> of the ideas from relativity is that the
> speed of light is constant, and that it is
> impossible for anything with mass to travel
> at the speed of light.) I've also done a
> study of thought experiments (and created my
> own thought experiments in my own physics
> research work)....

> I believe that thought-experiments have a
> place in business too! But I'm still
> investigating this.... Maybe others have
> some insight here?

> Thanks Julie, fantastic topic! :)

> - Dien