The Process of Discovery

The Process of Discovery

Edwin T. Scott Jr.

Discovering solutions to our problems is a process not well understood until modern times. In generations past great discoveries were often credited to the dedicated conscious thought and research of brilliant scientists. Occasionally, an "enlightened" individual would stumble upon a brilliant discovery, only to later be credited as the result of a hardworking laborious researcher. The actual process of discovery has historically been one of struggle, impasse, and epiphany.

In his essay "The Eureka Phenomenon," author Isaac Asimov describes how he would get past his impasse-writer's block, by simply stopping what he was working on and going to see a movie. The break allowed him to preoccupy his conscious mind with other things, while his subconscious continued to work on solving his dilemma. Without fail he came to a sudden and seemingly spontaneous resolution of his writer's block when he returned to his work.

Asimov believed that his success in writing was a result of the continued process of thinking within his subconscious mind, when he was not engaged in active thought on his problem. Asimov demonstrated how many noted researchers, including Archimedes, Friedrich Kekule, James Watt, William Hamilton, and Otto Loewi stumbled upon great scientific discoveries using the same process of struggle, impasse, and epiphany to arrive at their discoveries. He moved his audience to his conclusion that the process of discovery is the result of flashes of intuition, as opposed to dedicated thought and research. He called this the "Eureka Phenomenon" after Archimedes' exclamation in Greek "Eureka, Eureka" ("I got it, I got it") while he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse, after his discovery of the principle of buoyancy.

Asimov correctly described his understanding of the process of discovery and the thought processes involved with great discoveries. History is replete with examples of such discoveries that we are all familiar with, so much so that in 1926 Graham Wallas, an early twentieth century psychologist and scholar wrote a book The Art of Thought in which he postulated that creativity, which parallels Asimov's discovery process, was a four-step process. The four steps proposed by Wallas in his "Model for the Process of Creativity" are Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification.

In the preparation step the discoverer defines the issue, makes observations and studies the problem. During incubation the discoverer lays aside the issue for a time while he occupies himself with other unrelated things. Upon picking up his research again, the discoverer is illuminated with a workable solution, often the best solution to the issue. In the verification step, final analysis of the discovery resolves it as either concrete and incontrovertible or ultimately fallible and imprecise.

We have all heard the popular version of how Sir Isaac Newton discovered the force of gravity when an apple fell from a tree he was resting under and bonked him in

the head. In reality Newton had studied for many years on principles of movement, gravity, and other related topics. He discovered many properties of physical science, which have become our rules of physics today.

On his rule of Universal Gravitation, Newton actually studied long and hard, working complex geometrical and mathematical problems with no simple solution coming to him. It was only when he took a break from his research to enjoy the cool shade and breeze under an apple tree did the simple solution present itself. Newton relaxing, observed the apple fall from the tree and land near him. Suddenly the thought occurred to him that a force of nature pulled the apple to the ground instead of the tree pulling it back to its branch.

Likewise Newton observed that the apple fell at a constant steady rate towards the ground and to no other object. The gears turned, the idea that two objects would gravitate to each other by a force of motion, gravity, popped from inspiration to rationalization. Eureka!

In 1752 Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers of America and an avid student of the sciences and he was fascinated by the properties of electricity. In his time electricity was thought to be a mysterious fluid force of electrical "fire".  The most avid example of this phenomenon was the strikes of lightening which often caused houses and buildings to explode in fire. Franklin, the father of modern firehouses in America was convinced that laws of physics were behind the direction and flow of the mysterious force. Franklin had noted that lightening seemed to prefer to flow to metal, often striking weathervanes atop barns and fences in the city. One evening while watching a storm brew, with many flashes of lightening, it occurred to Franklin that if he could not make the lightening come to him, he would go to it.

By flying a kite with a metal object, a common metal skeleton key, attached to the kite string he would draw close to the force he intended to capture and set his trap. After several minutes of taunting the storm, lightening suddenly struck the key, burning the kite string and the lightening followed the string to Franklin's hand causing a slight jolt to the scholarly gentleman.

Suddenly a fresh new idea came to him that he had never even considered, that electricity takes the path of least resistance to flow to ground. The fireman in Franklin suddenly realized that he had discovered a way to protect houses, barns and fences by simply misdirecting the awesome force of nature to another source of grounding, and the lighting rod was born of Franklin's experiment. Eureka!

In writing this essay, I worked out my invention through brainstorming, listing ideas, researching and eventually outlining my thesis. At first this seemed so simple, Asimov's essay was very easy to agree with and I found literally hundreds of examples to prove his thesis with historical discoveries that are on record. After two such examples, I felt that my essay should move in a bolder new direction to build my point with the reader.

I felt that Asimov's premise was solid but lacked the icing that makes the cake so sweet and I wanted my paper to taste divine. I studied, poured over Internet resources, but nothing came. No profound new information came to light. In disgust, I began to scratch out notes, burn ideas and tear my creativity apart. Angrily, I set the work aside and propped down in front of the TV watching whatever SCI-FI flick was on television at the time. My wife's kind words and offers of assistance did nothing to assuage the helplessness I felt.

Somewhere in the midst of my retreat, I remembered the first day of college rhetoric and composition class, when Mrs. Hart gave the class the definition of epistemology-"writing as thinking." The light clicked on! Of course, "rhetoric, epistemology-these were a process of discovery," I thought to myself. They followed Wallas' Model of the Process of Creativity. I had researched and studied my topic and had come to an impasse-preparation! I became frustrated and set my work aside for a period and concentrated on something unrelated-incubation! Suddenly and for no real reason at all Mrs. Harts words came to me, rhetoric, epistemology-Enlightenment!

Finally in revision of my essay and reflection on my rhetorical prose, the epistemic works I created brought relief and closure to what Asimov had inspired me to demonstrate for the reader, the process of discovery-verification! Like Archimedes I ran down the streets of Syracuse naked, clothed in wonder and excitement as I proclaimed, "Eureka, Eureka!"