In Search of Nikola Tesla Page 151

IN SEARCH OF NIKOLA TESLA final fair copies – there are no second thoughts or corrections. Fredrich August Kekulé conceived of the molecular structure of benzine during a dream. Henri Poincaré solved a difficult mathematical theorem in that moment of stepping onto a tram car. Wagner had been blocked the in opening movement of his great Ring cycle until the evening, while lying ill at the Italian seaside resort of La Spezia he heard a 'rush and roar' in his brain that began to form into a constantly repeated chord of E-flat. This extended introduction, the river Rhine itself, provided the opening to the entire opera series. But where exactly do these creative ideas, these insights, come from? The chemist Louis Pasteur said that 'chance happens to the prepared mind.' He meant this in the sense that a person must first prepare fertile ground through study and the development of skills. Only then is seed ready to fall to the ground in the form of a question or an intention. For a time nothing happens, then one day, maybe a week or two later, a plant appears. (In the case of Michael Tippett and his opera 'A Midsummer Marriage' the gestation took many months and made the composer ill.) While we go about our daily business there can be an enormous amount of activity occurring in the unconscious that will one day burst forth as a fully formed idea, theorem or piece of music. I experience this with my own writing. There are times when writing a new piece that I reach a dead end. I know that I must press on but I am blocked. By now I have learned to trust the process. I simply remain with the intention, desire or question which can sometimes be experienced psychosomatically – as a stiffness in the leg, a tension in the stomach or a pain in the back. This may continue for several days until one morning I get up and the entire piece if fully formed in my imagination. All I have to do is write it down. All the words, metaphors and images are present and there will only be need for some very minor revision. - Clearly this occurs with music and literature, but how is it possible in the realm of electrical engineering? But here we must never underestimate the incredible abilities of the human brain. Think for a moment of idiot savants, people of apparently low intelligence who are capable of performing very complicated arithmetic calculations in their head. To take another example, Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian living in very poor circum151