Someone walks into a room.
Nobody looks up.
Not because they're rude. Not because they don't care.
They haven't yet found a meaningful relationship between the new event and the pattern of what they were already thinking.
Then one person notices that the newcomer's footsteps follow the same rhythm as a pattern they discovered in the movement of migrating birds.
Their head turns.
Across the room, someone notices the head turn. They recognize a symmetry between the movement and a mathematical structure they've been studying.
They stand up.
A third person notices that both movements form a pattern resembling a problem that has occupied their thoughts for six months.
Suddenly, three people are standing in different parts of the room, each examining the same invisible relationship from a different direction.
Nobody has said anything.
Nobody has even greeted the newcomer.
They've accidentally started a scientific conference.