This is a well-known story, but few have seen the hidden lesson in it. How many times did Archimedes get in and out of the tub without seeing the law of displacement? Moreover, how many millions of people in history up to that point had gotten in and out of the tub without discovering the law of displacement? Nobody before Archimedes had ever seen the relationship between the volume of the object dipped into water and an equal volume of water spilling out over the sides of the tub. The only reason Archimedes saw it on this particular occasion is because he had a particular problem on his mind which he had been contemplating for quite some time. The act of getting into the tub was not an attempt to solve the problem. It was to take a bath. It just so happened that the solution presented itself to him at that moment because he had been contemplating the problem for so long and it was still on his mind at the exact right moment. His brain was so saturated with the problem that when the solution presented itself, the hidden connection leaped out at him.