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

Every scientist has either had, or hopes to have, a Eureka moment at least once in their career. Historically, these lightbulb or ‘aha’ moments, happen in a variety of different ways – from breakthroughs that took years of careful investigation to those that happened seemingly by accident.

How Eureka moments manifest was something Jeffrey Seeman, a chemist and historian of science at the University of Richmond, and Judy Wu, a physical organic chemist at the University of Houston, were keen to explore. They wanted to