An astronomer working years on a massive problem gives up, goes on vacation to Switzerland, as his foot hit the ground exiting a bus, the answer arrived.
The benzine guy dreams of a snake eating its tail.
Presto! The structure of benzene.
If I can pick up a ‘seed crystal’ of a past event it will grow back, and quickly.
Short term, not so much.
From what I have read, short-term and long-term memories are handled differently by the brain, not unlike RAM memory and disk memory on a computer.