Eureka

(Photo by Gordon Meyer)

You wiggle your fingers and—eureka!
—Irv Furman, Amazing Irv’s Handbook of Everyday Magic (2002)

That sudden, impassioned sound of accomplishment, eureka, is “a word of magic . . . a dot of light on a night as black as pitch” (Terry Kay, The Valley of Light, 2003). It marks the special moment when a spark of inspiration seems to come out of nowhere. “Eureka, or should I say abracadabra. I’ve found the magic” (Eddie Segrum, “Segrum Secret,” 2004). Eureka is a Greek word, famously associated with the great mathematician Archimedes.

Meanings:

• Aha!

“[L]ooking at the symbols in your dreams can suddenly give you a Eureka! moment.” —Ariana, House Magic (2001)

• Bingo!

—Bruce Coville, Aliens Ate My Homework (1993)

• Breakthrough

—David Wolfe, Puzzlers’ Tribute (2001)

• I found it!

—Edward Eager, Magic by the Lake (1957)

• I’ve got it!

—Sig Lonegren, The Pendulum Kit (1990)

• Realization, insight, illumination, epiphany

—L. Michael Hall, User’s Manual for the Brain, Vol. II (2003)
—Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (2003)

• This is it!

—Brian Jacques, Redwall (2002)