Epiphany (feeling)

[11] The author used epiphany as a literary device within each entry of his short story collection Dubliners (1914); his protagonists came to sudden recognitions that changed their view of themselves and/or their social conditions.

[3] The biographies of many mathematicians and scientists include an epiphanic episode early in the career, the ramifications of which were worked out in detail over the following years.

For example, allegedly Albert Einstein was struck as a young child by being given a compass, and realizing some unseen force in space was making it move.

While taking a streetcar home, he looked behind him at the receding clocktower in Bern and realized that if the car sped up (close to the speed of light) he would see the clock slow down; with this thought, he later remarked, "a storm broke loose in my mind," which would allow him to understand special relativity.

Another famous epiphany myth is associated with Isaac Newton's apple story,[4] and yet another with Nikola Tesla's discovery of a workable alternating current induction motor.

Though such epiphanies might have occurred, they were almost certainly the result of long and intensive periods of study those individuals had undertaken, rather than an out-of-the-blue flash of inspiration about an issue they had not thought about previously.

Western churches generally celebrate the Visit of the Magi as the revelation of the Incarnation of the infant Christ, and commemorate the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6.

In Hinduism, for example, epiphany might refer to Arjuna's realization that Krishna (incarnation of God serving as his charioteer in the "Bhagavad Gita") is indeed representing the Universe.

Or in Buddhism, the term might refer to the Buddha obtaining enlightenment under the bodhi tree, finally realizing the nature of the universe, and thus attaining Nirvana.