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Creative Insight Writ Large 139

Table 5.1. Retrospective self-reports by individuals engaged in creative projects.

Source Report
J. L. Alty (1995), p. 219. “Composers struggle for days with ‘acceptable’ material
and then, suddenly a really good solution will present
itself and there will be no doubt as to its worth.”
T. R. Cech (2001), p. 14. On the discovery of catalytic RNA:
“… the progress one makes is not linear with time. For
any given amount of time spent, you often get nothing
in return. And then, all of a sudden, the breakthrough
comes, the flash of inspiration, and the problem is
solved in a relatively short time.”
T. A. Edison, quoted in “The first step is an intuition, and comes with a burst. … It
Baldwin (2001), p. 104. has been so in all of my inventions.”
G. Gould, quoted in “In the middle of one Saturday night in the fall of 1957, the
Brown (1988), p. 310. whole thing … suddenly popped into my head, and I
saw how to build a laser.”
H. von Helmholz, quoted “Often enough [‘happy thoughts’] crept quietly into my
and translated in thinking. … But in other cases, they arrived suddenly,
Woodworth (1938), p. 818. without any effort on my part, like an inspiration.”
G. Polya (1968), p. 54. “The solution of a problem may occur to us quite abruptly.
After brooding over the problem for a long time without
apparent progress, we suddenly conceive a bright idea,
we see daylight, we have a flash of inspiration.”
C. Thacker, quoted in Regarding the invention of multitasking computers:
Smith and Alexander “The solution just came to me. It was an ‘ah ha’
(1999), p. 92. experience.”

how many? Hillier continues his description of the invention of the electron
microscope in terms of two additional “breakthroughs” over and beyond the
one quoted above: analyzing a very thin sample by shooting a beam of par-
ticles through it, and using information about how particles scatter to develop
the so-called scanning microscope. How typical is the number three? Shamus
15
Regan and I analyzed the discovery of the structure of DNA into eight novel
16
conceptual steps. For example, the molecules that form the ladder steps in the
double helix – the so-called base pairs – combine in a complementary rather
than a like-with-like manner. That is, molecules of type A (adenine) pair with
molecules of type T (thymine), while molecules of type G (guanine) pair with
molecules of type C (cytosine) Both types of pairs have the same length and
thus form ladder steps of the same width. This feature of the DNA molecule
was quite unfamiliar at the time, as were the other seven features, and so had
to be discovered in the course of the work.