In Isaac Asimov's "The Eureka Phenomenon", he explains that when relaxed, a person's mind can solve a problem, conflict, or make a discovery much easier than if the person was in a stressed out state of mind. Examples are provided all throughout the story, including the humorous story of King Hieron II and Archimedes.
This story in a nutshell was about King Hieron II giving a large amount of gold to a goldsmith to fashion a crown. After receiving the crown, King Hieron II had suspicions that the goldsmith had pulled a fast one on him. He believed that the crown was not 100% gold so he brought the problem to Archimedes, who had the greatest intellect of anyone in the world.
Archimedes' only solution to the problem was to flatten the crown and test the volume. King Hieron immediately objected to the plan and ordered Archimedes to find another solution.
English: This image is a reproduction of an origin...
Dr. Isaac Asimov, head-and-shoulders portrait, fac...
Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, and Isaac Asi...Archimedes thought for countless hours but could find nothing. One day, Archimedes went to a relaxation spa to relieve some stress. All of his problems and worries slowly drained away and then in a single instant he finds the solution and runs through the town naked yelling to tell the king. After testing his new solution, the goldsmith was proven guilty and punished for his act.
Why tell the story this way? Why explain the irrelevant fact that Archimedes ran through the town naked? Those are questions that appeared in my mind after reading this story. Was Isaac Asimov experimenting on us, the reader? Yes he was. Asimov's whole conclusion of the story is that if the mind is in a relaxed mood, good results will follow, and that's what he tried to do to the reader.
Although the sentences in this story were not extremely complex, it...