Written by Richard Platt. Forward by Paul Nurse. First edition, 2003. Kingfisher, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Company.
A fascinating look at invention and what sparks the Eureka! moment, divided into five chapters: Everyday Life and Health; Getting Around; Lenses and Light; Electricity; Patience and Planning.
"All of the discoveries and inventions detailed in Eureka! - starting with the pendulum - have one thing in common: individuals who, in the words of the scientist Albert Szent-Gyorgy, were able to see what everybody else had seen but think what nobody else had thought.
"My own discovery of a gene that sheds light on our understanding of how all living things grow and reproduce - and how cancer cells go wrong - exemplifies the typical discovery process: a great deal of thought, a great deal of work, plenty of failure, and if you're lucky, eureka! It hits you, and you realize that you have solved the problem."
Within each chapter are the stories of some of history's greatest eureka! moments, from invention of the pendulum to the Internet.
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Condition*: Near Fine/Very Good. Dust jacket: Mild shelf wear; price-clipped. Pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.
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