The Act of Creation: Creative Processes in Science

Abstract

Creativity has become a magic word. The world community recognizes that progress in the arts, in the professions, and in science and technology relies exquisitely on the creativity of the people in these professions. The central role of creativity is testified to by the existence of a department in a government bureau concerned with creativity (in the National Bureau of Standards), by the existence of courses on creativity taught in schools of industrial management, and by the occurrence of articles on creativity in such diverse sources as the Readers' Digest and the free magazines one finds in airplane seats. It is surprising, then, that scientists speak so little about creativity and about how to encourage creativity among their students, when in fact creativity can be fairly considered to be the most essential ingredient of good science. There are many things that could be said about creative processes in science, but I intend to make just four central points: 1. Creativity is definitively a personal function. 2. In part because of this personal quality, creativity is difficult to teach to students. 3. The communication of creative sci-

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