THE EUREKA MOMENT
DEEP ENGLISH

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How to use this lesson to improve your English listening

1. Start with the slow speed lesson.
2. Don’t read the text first. Listen to it only few times.
3. Listen to it again while reading.
4. Challenge yourself with the normal speed and the fast speed.

TRANSCRIPT

Sometimes our best ideas come when we least expect them. For Greek mathematician Archimedes, this happened during a trip to the local baths. The king of Syracuse had put him in charge of finding out how to detect fraud in the manufacture of a golden crown. The king suspected his goldsmith was leaving out some of the gold and substituting it with silver. As Archimedes relaxed, he saw that the more his body sunk into the bath, the more the level of the water rose. He suddenly realized that the volume and purity of the crown could be measured using water displacement. Silver weighs less than gold, so if the crown wasn’t pure gold, but actually a mixture of silver and gold, it would displace more water. At that moment, he jumped out of the bath and ran home naked, crying “Eureka! Eureka!” meaning “I’ve found it! I’ve found it!” To this day, having a sudden flash of insight into a difficult problem is called a eureka moment.

The history of science and invention is chock full of eureka moments. Sir Isaac Newton, while sitting under the shade of a tree, was suddenly struck in the head by a falling apple. In that moment, Newton came up with the theory of gravity. Albert Einstein, after many months of trying to solve intense math problems, let his imagination wander. He saw a moving train being struck by two bolts of lightning at the same time, one at the front and one at the back. He then wondered if a person standing beside the track and a person on the train would see the strikes as simultaneous. In that instant, the theory of relativity was born.

While we may never have the kind of grand realizations that Newton and Einstein had, eureka moments happen to us all the time. Do you remember the last time you suddenly got the punchline of a joke or remembered a person’s name that was on the tip of your tongue? That’s a eureka moment.

Studies by neuroscientists show that the kind of insight contained in a eureka moment is actually the result of a much longer creative process. We first use our analytical minds to turn a problem over and over in search of a solution with no success. But when we finally relax, give up thinking, and turn our attention inward, the insight suddenly arrives. So the next time you are struggling with a difficult problem, maybe it’s best to be patient, do something relaxing, and let the solution come to you. Either that or go sit under an apple tree. Coconut trees are not recommended.

VOCABULARY TIPS

in charge of: in control of; responsible for
find out: discover or learn some information
to this day: continuing to the present time
come up with: think of, produce or suggest an idea or plan
imagination wander: to relax and imagine freely without any specific focus
on the tip of one’s tongue: something that you know but cannot remember; something you feel you are very close to remembering