When do Great Ideas come ? .... after Incubation Archimedes had his bath, Galileo had his leaning tower, Newton had his apple, and Einstein had his chair. All these Inventors were (a) intensely focused on solving specific physics problems (b) they had each looked at a variety of promising ideas, but reached an impasse after some stage (c) they smartly decided to move away from the scene - took a break (d) after some time, a fresh idea popped into their Mind (e) they recognized the potential of the idea and held on to it (f) they diligently worked on it and finally developed a real breakthrough concept. Many Inventors have shared the vale of incubating their idea and described specific instances where the incubation phase is followed by a sudden enlightenment. We have heard the stories of Archimedes, Galileo and Newton too often - so let us focus on Einstein's story. You might have heard of Einstein's Violin but not about his chair - the chair that gave...
Shankar's Approach to Transforming Ideas into Innovations