Eureka! Mapping the Creative Mind

Revolutionary ideas don't come out of nowhere. Or do they? Starting with Archimedes' original "eureka" moment, producer John Chipman dissects "aha" moments both big and small, and draws a road map to understanding Big Ideas. He looks at how our brains come up with them, and whether we can train ourselves to be better at making them happen. **This episode originally aired March 19, 2015.

Participants in the program:

Peter Achauer is the founder and chief executive of ABS Airbags, a market leader in inflatable avalanche safety systems. Read more about the effectiveness of avalanche airbags here.

Mark Beeman is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Northwestern University. He studies the cognitive and neural basis for Eureka moments.

Debbie Douglas is the director of collections and the curator of science and technology at the MIT Museum in Boston.

Rex Jung is an assistant professor in the department of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico. He studies creativity and intelligence.

Reviel Netz is a professor in the Classics department at Stanford who teaches the history of ancient science. He is a world-renowned Archimedes scholar.

The Archimedes Palimpsest Project

Archimedes in the 21st Century

Steve Russell was the lead programmer on Spacewar!, the world's first video game designed for a computer.​

Genevieve von Petzinger is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Victoria. Her research into prehistoric cave rock signs and symbols is changing our understanding of when written communications first began.

John Chipman's blog Eureka! 7 easy steps to becoming a genius