MAGIC WORDS Eureka You wiggle your fingers and -- eureka! -- Irv Furman, Amazing Irv's Handbook of Everyday Magic (2002) Mystique: That sudden, impassioned sound of accomplishment, eureka, is "a word of magic . . . a dot of light on a night as black as pitch."14 It marks the special moment when a spark of inspiration seems to come out of nowhere. "Eureka, or should I say abracadabra. I've found the magic."15 Meanings: • Aha! "[L]ooking at the symbols in your dreams can suddenly give you a Eureka! moment." -- Ariana, House Magic (2001) • Bingo! -- Bruce Coville, Aliens Ate My Homework (199 ) • Breakthrough -- David Wolfe, Puzzlers' Tribute (2001) • I found it! -- Edward Eager, Magic by the Lake (1957) • I've got it! -- Sig Lonegren, The Pendulum Kit (1990) • Realization, insight, illumination, epiphany -- L. Michael Hall, User's Manual for the Brain, Vol. II (200 ) -- Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class (200 ) • This is it! -- Brian Jacques, Redwall (2002) Origins: Eureka is a Greek word, famously associated with the great math ematician Archimedes. Variations and Incantations: • Bravo Viva Kudos Whoopee Eureka Hallelujah Abracadabra "Chant this string of magic words five times a day: 'Bravo Viva Kudos Whoopee Eureka Hallelujah Abracadabra.'" -- Rob Brezsny, "Free Will Astrology" (2005) • Eureka, abracadabra, yo-ho-ho "[S]cenes of imagination and wonder spring to life as if by magic. The studio shakes and rattles as eruptions of multicolored smoke billow forth amidst exclamations of eureka, abracadabra, yo-ho-ho, and then -- poof! Another painting appears." -- Don Maitz (2005) 14 Terry Kay, The Valley of Light (200 ) 15 Eddie Segrum, "Segrum Secret" (2004)