Space Education & Strategic Applications Volume 1, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2020 | Page 15

Introduction to Our Featured Article
ic, but that the reasoning or solution to their questions suddenly appear, as if out
of nowhere during certain circumstances. For example, one of the greatest mathematicians,
Srinivasa Ramanujan, is a model of curiosity, intuition, and unwaning
determination. This self-taught genius had an immense fixation that followed him
until his death: the number pi (π). As Ramanujan fell asleep, he had recurring
dreams about Namagiri, a Hindu goddess.
Interestingly, Ramanujan claimed that the Hindu goddess would present formulas,
equations, and theorems to him in his dreams every night. When he would wake up
the next morning, he would write down what he could remember from the dream:
“While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen
formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly, a
hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand
hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind.
As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing.” ~ Srivivasa Ramanujan
After a few years, he had accumulated 3,900 formulae. However, because he was
unable to show how he arrived at these equations and formulas (as they need to be
replicable for other scientists to follow) Ramanujan’s “dream” methodology caused
him much opposition from the scientific community.
The origin of Albert Einstein’s “hunch”, later known as his Theory of Relativity, allegedly
came to him while sick in bed.
Astronomer, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, and best known for his research on extraterrestrial
life, Carl Sagan, recounts an experience as a child that confirmed his
life as a scientist. Upon convincing his mother to get him a library card, he shares
what he did next:
“I went to the librarian and asked for a book about stars; ... And the
answer was stunning. It was that the Sun was a star but really close.
The stars were suns, but so far away they were just little points of light
... The scale of the universe suddenly opened up to me. It was a kind
of religious experience. There was a magnificence to it, a grandeur, a
scale which has never left me. Never ever left me.” ~ Carl Sagan
Similar to the researchers before him, Sagan was "an 'ideas person' and a master of
intuitive physical arguments.” (Morrison, 2007).
A Life of Scrutiny and Ridicule
Although we have widely acknowledged the aforementioned scientists’ exceptional
discoveries as “truth”, such as that earth and other planets orbit the sun,
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