That moment of insight by the sea embodies the…

That moment of insight by the sea embodies the classic three stages of creativity. First there's the immersion in the problem itself-here, fruitless tinkering with the biochemistry of the ribosome. In the second stage the mind goes into neutral, wandering off where it will; this stage ends with "illumination," the creative insight that's what happened on the beach. Finally there's the third stage, execution, where the hard work of putting the insight into action-making it useful-goes on.

— from The Mind in the Cockpit

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