Page 59 - (DK) How to be a GENIUS?
P. 59
Inspired thinking
An expert chess player may seem
to make the right move using
intuition rather than logic. But this
Wait a minute! It “inspired thinking” is more likely
smells like someone to be the result of intense study
has been baking a and experience, which enables
cake. Why would the player to recognize particular
they be doing that? arrangements of the chess pieces
on the board. This automatically
triggers a memory of the next
move, which usually turns out
to be the right one.
What? A balloon?
I thought I was imagining
it, but there’s definitely
something going on!
Surprise!
Out of the blue
Sometimes someone grappling
with a problem finds that the solution
seems to come “out of the blue”
after working on something else
for a while. This is probably because
irrelevant details get forgotten, so the
main elements of the problem come
into sharper focus. The person may
also come across new information
that makes everything slot into place.
Woof!
Dream wor
rk
e may
Occasionally people
even dream the solut tion to a
problem. In the winter r of 1861,
G Kekulé was
German chemist August
t
trying to figure out the st ructure of a
benzene molecule. Whil le dozing in
d f a snake
f
th
fro t f th fire, he dreame ed o f k
ont
o
fi
e
h d
biting its tail. According to Kekulé,
this gave him the clue
e that the
molecule was a ring o
of carbon
oms.
and hydrogen ato
Benzene molecule
s structure
57
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