‘A mix of amazement, pure joy and relief’: chemists reflect on their Eureka moments

Myunghyun Paik Suh, a chemist at Seoul National University in South Korea, could have been discouraged when her paper reporting a single-crystal to single-crystal transformation was rejected by Nature because one of the reviewers dismissed the idea. Rather than giving up, the rejection gave Suh an idea; to take photographs under an optical microscope to establish the retention of the crystal’s single crystallinity, during and after immersion of the crystal in the solvent, as well as during the redox reaction. The result was a much stronger publication that established a new branch of materials science. 

Richmond Sarpong, a chemist at UC Berkeley, had his Eureka moment in the late 2000s, while he and his team were in the final stages of a total synthesis of ‘the architecturally complex’ Lyropodium alkaloid (+)-lyconadin A. The problem was, that they had started their work in full knowledge that they lacked a method to conduct a crucial step. They tried a variety of different approaches, but nothing was working. The solution was borne out of desperation, quite literally – Sarpong’s tenure depended on it. It was when Sarpong turned the problem around and suggested doing a C–N version of a C–C coupling that they succeeded. On realising it had worked, Sarpong recalled feeling ‘a mix of amazement, pure joy and relief’. 

Lawrence Scott, a chemist at Boston College, US, recalls his ‘aha’ moment while hearing Harry Kroto talk at a novel aromatic compounds meeting in Japan in 1989, specifically his comment that C₆₀ had been detected in flames. Scott describes being ‘astounded’ by his comment and immediately realised the opportunity it presented – he realised flash vacuum pyrolysis (FVP) could be used to synthesise C₆₀ in the lab. Scott’s subsequent FVP synthesis of corannulene provided the first proof of principle that bowl-shaped polyarenes could be synthesised from planar hydrocarbon precursors by FVP and led to the first rational synthesis of C₆₀. 

Saundra Yancy McGuire, director emerita of the Center for Academic Success and a retired professor of chemistry at Louisiana State University, US, experienced what she describes as a ‘moment of great pedagogical growth’ when she recognised that she needed to apply what she had learned about herself to enhance her teaching. This realisation gave her the belief that anyone could master chemistry provided they had the ‘desire and were shown how to concentrate on the whys, hows and what ifs, rather than just the whats’. As soon as she put this idea into practice, she said she began to see students deepen their learning and, subsequently, improve their grades. ‘Mastering chemistry was available not just to the so-called “smart” students, but to all students. I felt like a physician who had discovered a life-saving treatment,’ she recalled. 

Danna Freedman, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that when she wants to mull over an idea, she’ll go for a long walk, and it was this approach that led her to her ‘aha’ moment. As a postdoc, her research focused on the electronic properties of new materials, heavy metals and magnetic dipole moments. While on the phone to a friend she describes suddenly having a realisation that she had framed a problem incorrectly. ‘The realisation was that a single compound having two atoms, one a source of the spin and the other the course of the angular momentum. A compound containing iron and bismuth,’ she told Seeman and Wu. At that point she knew she had a novel idea for her research proposal that no one else would. She recalls that at that moment she felt ‘complete’. ‘I had gone from a feeling of ephemeral to solid deep satisfaction,’ she said.

Joseph Francisco at the University of Pennsylvania believes that when one is under pressure to make a big discovery it cannot happen. So, for him, Christmas Eve is the optimum time for a Eureka moment. Christmas 1998, he was thinking about models for atmospheric chemistry and noticed the absence of water. He realised that models without water rarely reflect what’s going on in the atmosphere. ‘An idea germinated, bubbled up. And that opened up an entire field. What did I feel? No immediate emotion, just the curiosity to explore,’ he recalls. 

For chemist and inventor Robert Langer, one of his breakthroughs came while on an exercise bike at a hotel in Florida where he was about to give a lecture. He picked up an issue of Life magazine and was reading a story about the cars of the future, which discussed how if a car was dented in an accident heat could be used to snap it back into shape. Then he wondered if it might be possible to make materials, such as polymers, that do a similar thing so that surgical sutures form knots when exposed to body temperature. The idea led to papers in Science and Nature and could eventually lead to next-generation drug-eluting stents and new biomaterial-based drug delivery treatments for cancer, schizophrenia and many other diseases. 

Valeria Molinero, a physical and materials chemist at the University of Utah, was inspired while reading a much-talked-about paper in Science about medium-density amorphous ice, which described a new phase of water. This was a topic she knew a lot about but the findings in the paper confused her as they did not fit her understanding of water. But, at 4am on a snowy morning in Utah, something clicked. Trying to demonstrate her new understanding to her husband by going outside and compressing snow in her hands she describes the feeling as ‘intoxicating’.