EUREKA

Just going down memory lane and decided to stay at my secondary school ‘avenue’, precisely at physics class ‘bus stop’ and the word Eureka from Archimedes principle just jumped at me. As I ruminated on this some burning issues unveiled themselves beckoning on my consideration. For those who do not have a background in the sciences let me give you a brief history of this word so we can flow together.

It is most famously attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes; he reportedly proclaimed "Eureka!" when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose — he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This meant that the volume of irregular objects could be calculated with precision, a previously intractable problem. He is said to have been so eager to share his realization that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.

Just a simple experiment will validate this principle: fill a glass to its brim with water and push a table tennis ball into the glass, the water runs over the side. The volume or amount of water that overflows the glass is the volume that has been displaced.

If you weigh the water that overflows and the table tennis ball, you find that the water weighs more than the ball. If an object displaces an amount of water weighting more than it does, it floats. If an object displaces an amount of water weighing less than it does, it sinks. If an object displaces an amount of water weighing the same as it does, it hovers.

Archimedes' insight led to the solution of a problem posed by Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden crown. Equipment for weighing objects already existed, and now that Archimedes could also measure volume, their ratio would give the object's density, an important indicator of purity; it also explains why a steel ship will float on water.

Now enough of physics, let’s focus on central message of this discourse.

Borrowing a dose of wisdom from the words of Helen Keller who once opined that the “greatest tragedy in life is people who have sight but no vision”, I hope that you’ll accede to my tweaking this a little to make my submission that it is a tragedy to have sight without insight. How that several times we approach issues from a dysfunctional stance simply because someone said it cannot be done, we throw in the towel and give up. We look but we refuse to see. History is replete with men who defied stereotypes, who dared to ask ‘why not’ and achieved feats that were once considered impossible . The story of Archimedes once again reminded me of the fact that tenacity is the rule of the game for anyone who wants to inscribe his name on the sands of history as having made a tremendous contribution to the course of making the world a better place. Permit me to at this juncture underscore some life’s principles I was able to glean from Archimedes principle:

 Sight – the issue of having a vision has been flogged (if not over flogged) at several fora and in different circumstances to the point that loads of people has come to accept it as the panacea to the myriads of challenges they face. As much as there is no one-size-fits-all principle to getting ahead in life I will like to submit that as good as vision is it is not enough. The holy writ says “where there is no vision the people perish”, where there are no people, what happens to the vision? Hence as good as vision is, it needs human instruments to bring it to the realm of reality and by ‘instruments’ I’m talking of that specie of humans with a ‘can do’ attitude towards life.

 Foresight – this has to do with planning for the morrow, it is analyzing where one is, setting achievable goals and charting the course of action(s) that will transport one to where one desires to be. How we need men with fore sight in our days, those with an uncommon drive who can draw a clear map of the journey  that will ultimately land us in our land of abundance.

 Hindsight – experience they say is the best teacher, there is no gainsaying the fact that we learn invaluable lessons from the things that have happened to us in the past. The danger however lies in not knowing where to draw the line between learning and letting go. Several folks are so tied to their past that they cannot be released into their future. As good as hindsight is extract the requisite lessons from it and throw them to where they belong – behind (that’s why it is called hindsight). It’s no use flogging a dead horse, look back, learn and look forward.

 Insight – this is a sight whose source is not external but internal. It is the ‘thermometer’ of the soul – the instrument for measuring our true sense of sight. The euphemism for insight is revelation and trust me it births revolution.

Turn the searchlight inwards activate your inner eyes and engage the forces of nature on a higher realm by unlocking the solution to your situation through the instrumentality of insight and as you unlock the streams of possibilities from within like Archimedes you will shout EUREKA.