LIFE was so much simpler in Archimedes' day.
Today, he would have barely uttered "Eureka" before a platoon of venture capitalists tried to obtain his signature.
If you've got a bright idea there is no shortage of people wanting to make a fast buck out of it.
The problem is that a flash of inspiration doesn't necessarily lead to a viable business. Many dazzling concepts implode before a prototype is made. Others, such as the Ultracane, are made of sterner stuff.
In 1998, three academics had a collective "Eureka" moment in the canteen at Leeds University.
Seven years later, their brainchild, the Ultracane, is helping blind and visually-impaired people find their way, using a system inspired by bats.
It was born out of the obsessions of people, who on the face of it, had very little in common.
They were Prof Deborah Withington, an expert in the brain stem, Dr Dean Waters, who spends a lot of time with bats, and electronic circuit boards specialist Prof Brian Hoyle.
Wouldn't it be marvellous, they thought, if the ultrasonic waves used by bats to navigate in the dark could help humans with poor eyesight?
It could so easily have ended there, as a passing thought between tutorials. But the three academics were determined to test their theory.
The canteen conversation led to the creation of Sound Foresight, and years of intense research and development.
The company worked with Cambridge Consultants, a specialist organisation that helps clients turn ideas into commercial successes, to develop the Ultracane.
The cane uses ultrasonic signals which bounce off nearby objects and feed information back to the cane. The signals sweep areas in front and to the head height of the user. This means they will be alerted to obstacles such as tree branches and wing mirrors on lorries.
Dr Waters says: "We were inspired by the way bats navigate in darkness using echo-location – transmitting ultrasonic waves and reading the echoes as they bounce off objects. It's fairly easy to simulate this electronically but difficult to offer the information in a form that humans can use simply without conscious effort.
"We knew that the sensation of touch directly accesses the area of the brain which subconsciously maps the surroundings, just as the sensation of vision does. So we created an interface to the user that exploits tactile vibrations in the handle."
In layman's terms, this means ultrasonic echoes are converted into vibrations to tell the user where, and how far away, an obstacle is.
It went on sale in October, and has attracted orders from as far afield as Botswana. It's been hailed by celebrity scientist Adam Hart-Davis as proof that British invention is alive and well.
But the journey from lab to launch was far from a doddle, as Jane Fowler, the company's MD, will testify.
Sound Foresight could have gone the way of many university-led enterprises, which never get beyond the drawing board. The fact that the company's trio of boffins sought help sets them apart.
Fowler, a marketing specialist who joined the company four years ago from computer printing firm Lexmark, says: "While universities are a hotbed of ideas, the inventors often don't have the necessary business acumen or time to take a product or project forward to commercial success.
"The biggest issue is funding. We were told that we couldn't bring a product to market for less than £1m. I didn't believe them."
Trying to stump up the cash provided an education in the ways of private equity and venture capital (VC). Most of the company's backing has come from private individuals, although Yorkshire Forward has underpinned some of the risk.
Does Fowler think spin-outs should be wary of private equity firms and venture capitalists?
"No, just wary of the terms and conditions, which are not always helpful, especially at an early stage,'' she says. "If anything, I would suggest that these funds and local part-Government funded funds should try to be less like a VC in terms of valuation and expectation of return.
"They want it both ways it seems, investment in targeted development areas, plus a VC expectation in terms of return on investment. As in all things, there are exceptions and Sound Foresight has been fortunate in finding good local grant support in the development agencies of South Yorkshire."
She urges other spin-outs to keep their feet on the ground: "What they need to do is have a really soundly researched business plan. They have to bear in mind that everything will take longer than they think and it will cost a lot more."
In 2002, the Sound Foresight team turned down the chance to sit on the sofa with TV's Richard & Judy, because the product's launch was believed to be at least nine months away.
In fact, it didn't go on sale for two more years. Fowler won't reveal turnover figures but says things are going "very well".
To underline the company's Yorkshire credentials, Barnsley has been chosen as the manufacturing base.
The Ultracane has been honed and refined following trials involving visually-impaired people. Roy Gray, one of its first testers, said: "It's an astonishing device. Signals just come into my hand, and it's just a normal reaction. I certainly wouldn't be without it."
Ultracane has been selected as one of seven innovations to be featured in the UK pavilion at the Expo 2005, in Aichi, Japan, which runs from March to September and is expected to attract 15m visitors.