What's your take on this Isaac Asimov quote?

Question

"The words that herald a major scientific breakthrough are less often 'Eureka' than 'Hmmm. That's odd."

Answer 1

The quote means that many new doscoveries are made unintentionally.

Take Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillen. He left some moldy bread on this window sill and it killed bacteria.

William Caruthers of DuPont left some chemicals in a beaker overnight and "discovered" nylon the next day.

The key is to recognize that something "odd" or enexpected has occured and to do something with this new information

Answer 2

To me, it means that a scientist looks at something he doesn't understand, and then tries to work out what it is. A classic example would be Galileo looking at Jupiter through a telescope and noticing the disc shape and the moons as points of light near it. His first reaction would not have been "Eureka, I've discovered that the Earth revolves around the Sun!" it would have been "Hmmm, that's odd, why does Jupiter look different to the stars and what are those other points of light near it?"

Answer 3

I agree, with some technicalities. A person repeating a lie does not make them a liar unless they are aware of the lie. Else, they're simply misinformed, repeating a lie told to them, perpetuating the non-sense. It's not malicious. It's just wrong. "I don't know" is far more responsible than repeating nonsense, regardless of the subject. Creationists are delusional, and delusional people are not to be trusted. Ones lying on purpose are arguably not at all stupid and well aware of their intentions, often very clever.

Answer 4

I think old Ike knew a lot more than most people, and he had a fantastically simple way of expressing the complex for his Gentle Readers.
If you're asking what did he mean, I think he meant that breakthroughs in science (and any field of human endeavour) tend to be "accidental" happenstances rather than planned elightenment.
We discover things or invent things because we get results or see things we weren't initially expecting (Post-It notes are a great example).

Answer 5

I really like this quote. It's in the accidental discoveries along the way that we learn the most about how the world works. It's one thing to sit down and say, "I think I'll invent a thingamajig today," and another thing entirely to stumble across a cool new way of looking at the world, based on a simple but careful observation.

These days, I'm looking at the world through the eyes of my toddler, seeing things with his sense of wonder. What a great experience it is, for both of us!

Answer 6

It means scientific breakthroughs often give rise to more questions. And I think that's a good thing.

Answer 7

Exactly! Take a look at Michaelson-Morley experiment. The experiment was to measure the speed of light through the either which was scientifically accepted it's existence. They did not realized that the failure to measure the speed of light was due to absence of ether in space. They were unhappy because the experiment was a failure until they realized that they made a great discovery in science.

Answer 8

Seems like he is saying that most advances come to be known through small inconsistencies in normal scientific ideals.

Most breakthroughs, he seems to say, are not searched for but instead are stumbled upon

Answer 9

The unexpected result often leads to the greatest breakthrough.

Answer 10

i think thats quite true, b/c we often think that things we dont know about are odd.

makes sence, right?