A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

Another way to improve fuel generation is by making connections between different objects

This may seem a funny skill to develop but it has been very useful in the history of discoveries. You should be familiar with this example.

The essence of discovery is the marriage of previously unrelated frames of reference with the ultimate matchmaker, the unconscious.

Arthur Koestler in the 'Act of Creation' coins the term 'Bisociation act' as something connecting previously unconnected matrices of experience. An extract from his book reads:
" Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse and protector of Archimedes had been given a beautiful crown, allegedly of pure gold. but he suspected that it was adulterated with silver. He asked Archimedes opinion.

Archimedes knew the specific weight of gold - the weight per volume unit. If he could measure the volume of the crown he would know whether it was pure gold.. If only he could melt the crown down and measure the liquid by the pint or hammer it into a brick of honest rectangular shape.

Blocked situations increase stress. In Archimedes case we can imagine his thoughts moving in circles within the frame of his geometrical knowledge and finding all approaches to the problem blocked, returning again and again to the starting point.

This frustrating situation, familiar to everyone trying to solve a difficult problem can be represented by a curve on one plane.

One day, while getting into his bath Archimedes watched absentmindedly the familiar sight of the water level rising from the smudge on the basin to the next as a result of the immersion of his body. It occurred to him in a flash that the volume of water displaced was equal to the volume of the immersed parts of his body which could be measured by the pint- he had melted his body down. The matter is childishly simple after the fact - but let us look at it from Archimedes point of view.

He was in the habit of taking a daily bath, but the experiences and ideas associated with it moved alone habit-beaten tracks. Neither to Archimedes or to anyone else before him had it occurred to connect the trivial act of taking a bath with the scholarly pursuit of the measurement of solids. No doubt many observed that the level of water rose whenever they got into it but this fact and the distance between the 2 levels was totally irrelevant to him.

Until it became bisociated with his problem -at that instance he realised. Both matrices were simultaneously active in Archimedes head though presumably on different levels of awareness. The creative stress resulting from the blocked situation had kept the problem on the agenda even while the beam of consciousness was drifting alone a quite different plane.

Without this pressure the favourable chance constellation would have passed unnoticed and joined the legion of missed opportunities for a creative departure from the stable habits of thought which numbs our mental powers. Discovery often means the uncovering of something which has always been there but was hidden from the eye by the blinkers of habit.