eureka moment

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a sudden, exhilarating flash of insight or understanding in which a problem that has resisted solution becomes brilliantly clear, as if from nowhere; the term derives from the Greek heureka meaning I have found it, famously exclaimed by Archimedes when he stepped into a bath and realised that the displacement of water could be used to measure volume and thus determine whether a crown was made of pure gold; eureka moments have been reported across scientific history — Kekulé's vision of the benzene ring, Fleming's observation of mould killing bacteria — and are celebrated as the dramatic, personal face of the longer, more grinding process of systematic inquiry; in popular culture the eureka moment romanticises discovery as individual revelation rather than collaborative incremental work