Principle of Photosynthesis
It is almost a universal experience, when we try desperately to recall a person's name, line of a song, or something, often with no success. The answer is there on the tip of the tongue, but the more one tries to get it, the further it recedes. And then, when we have given up, it suddenly crops up, when we are not thinking of it at all. What this shows is that the search for solution is never abandoned by the mind; it often continues out of our conscious awareness.
Melvin Calvin received Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1961 for his work on photosynthesis. The story of his discovery is a good example of sudden Aha! experience which comes to the creative people in the moments of unawareness.
Calvin had obtained some results in his laboratory, which were incompatible with his present understanding of the photosynthesis process. There was something missing which could explain the findings, but he was unable to identify it. One day while he was waiting for his wife in the parking lot, in a flash he knew what the missing compound was in the process. He described this experience later:
"It occurred just like that - quite suddenly - and suddenly, also in a matter of seconds, the cyclic character of the path of carbon became apparent to me... the original recognition of phosphoglyceric acid, and how it got there, and how the acceptor might be regenerated, all occurred in a matter of 30 seconds."
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