"Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination."
— Poincaré, Henri (1854-1912)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Paris
Date
1908
Metaphor
"Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination."
Metaphor in Context
One evening, contrary to my custom, I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination. By the next morning I had established the existence of a class of Fuchsian functions, those which came from the hypergeometric series; I had only to write out the results, which took but a few hours.
Categories
Provenance
Reading Daniel Dennett's "Why the Law of Effect Will Not Go Away" in Brainstorms. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA: 1996.
Citation
Excerpt available at Wayne State University web page <Link>
Date of Entry
07/17/2006
Date of Review
02/27/2009
