The Marvel of Discovery

The Marvel of Discovery

1987 11 November 19 The Marvel of Discovery (219) A spirit of enquiry is the key to all worthy success.

Every age in history has bestowed honour and glory upon the great discoverers of the world, for discovery of something absolutely new in the realms of science is considered one of the greatest of human feats – little short of a miracle. How does man actually reach the point of making a discovery? The answer to this has been very simply and beautifully expressed by the Nobel Laureate in physics, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi: Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”

The profundity of this statement is aptly illustrated by the story of Sir Isaac Newton and the apple. One day Newton witnessed the quite ordinary event of an apple falling from a tree – a happening which must be quite commonly noticed, but seldom remarked upon. No-one had ever really given any thought before to the downwards fall of the apple. But Newton’s razor sharp mind elicited from this ordinary event an extraordinary significance, which led to his formulating the Law of Gravity. In something which everybody had seen. Newton discovered something which no one had thought.

Such a spirit of enquiry is the key to all worthy success, and without it, no individual or nation can rise to a superior position. No people can come to the forefront without fostering the will to discover.