THEME MUSIC
"Facade", Sir William Walton, 1921
DO YOU THINK LIKE EINSTEIN?
HOW CLOSELY DO YOUR THOUGHT PROCESSES RESEMBLE THOSE OF ALBERT EINSTEIN?
WHAT’S YOUR ‘EINSTEIN QUOTIENT’?
1. Strenuous intellectual work overcomes life’s troubles.
2. I focus on what’s important by creating a small world for myself.
3. I am entirely devoted to reflection.
4. When my thoughts come, then I try to express them in words
5. I am not interested in making everyday life practical.
6. I am usually rewarded only after much feverish labor.
7. I have a sense of duty toward all people.
8. I am aware of my limitations.
9. By having contact with art, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure.
10. My work is my life.
11. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
12. Goodness, beauty, and truth fill me with the loy of living.
13. A simple and unassuming life is best for the body and mind.
14. I have a passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility.
15. I enjoy independent thinking.
16. Love of knowledge is a better teacher than a sense of duty.
17. I must have precise facts before I state an opinion.
18. I naturally take thing as they come with equanimity and humor.
19. I am passionately curious.
20. I think more about the present than about the future.
THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ARE ACTUAL QUOTES — remarks Albert Einstein made (during interviews or in his books) about how he thinks and works. Of course, agreement with many or all of these will not qualify you to make iconic discoveries in physics.
BUT CONSIDER THE POSTER AT RIGHT: Press on. And consider the fact that Einstein insisted that he was not a genius — “I merely stay with a problem longer”, “I am usually rewarded only after much feverish labor”.
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY VIEWS of creative thinking are based on approaches unavailable to Einstein back in the middle of the twentieth century:
A. Functional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of the brain during problem-solving tasks;
B. ‘Gushers of information that wash over us in a world growing ever more interconnected’;
C. Beginning to glean the origins of novelty-seeking (neophilia), free-range imagination, top-down and bottom-up thinking, idea generation, divergent and integrative thinking;
D. How innovative thinkers in disparate fields demonstrate creativity patterns that create paradigm shifts in science, culture, and society.
WE DO KNOW THAT NEWTON thought of gravity when seeing an apple fall. And Einstein apparently thought of gravity when seeing a person fall. Both creative discoveries exhibited “elastic” thinking. Both creative discoveries arrived when they were relaxed, allowing random thoughts to populate their brains. Provocative approaches to creativity are found in “Elastic: Flexible Thinking In A Time Of Change”, Leonard Mlodinow.
DO YOU THINK LIKE EINSTEIN?
HOW CLOSELY DO YOUR THOUGHT PROCESSES RESEMBLE THOSE OF ALBERT EINSTEIN?
WHAT’S YOUR ‘EINSTEIN QUOTIENT’?
1. Strenuous intellectual work overcomes life’s troubles.
2. I focus on what’s important by creating a small world for myself.
3. I am entirely devoted to reflection.
4. When my thoughts come, then I try to express them in words
5. I am not interested in making everyday life practical.
6. I am usually rewarded only after much feverish labor.
7. I have a sense of duty toward all people.
8. I am aware of my limitations.
9. By having contact with art, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure.
10. My work is my life.
11. Imagination is more important than knowledge.
12. Goodness, beauty, and truth fill me with the loy of living.
13. A simple and unassuming life is best for the body and mind.
14. I have a passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility.
15. I enjoy independent thinking.
16. Love of knowledge is a better teacher than a sense of duty.
17. I must have precise facts before I state an opinion.
18. I naturally take thing as they come with equanimity and humor.
19. I am passionately curious.
20. I think more about the present than about the future.
THE ABOVE STATEMENTS ARE ACTUAL QUOTES — remarks Albert Einstein made (during interviews or in his books) about how he thinks and works. Of course, agreement with many or all of these will not qualify you to make iconic discoveries in physics.
BUT CONSIDER THE POSTER AT RIGHT: Press on. And consider the fact that Einstein insisted that he was not a genius — “I merely stay with a problem longer”, “I am usually rewarded only after much feverish labor”.
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY VIEWS of creative thinking are based on approaches unavailable to Einstein back in the middle of the twentieth century:
A. Functional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging of the brain during problem-solving tasks;
B. ‘Gushers of information that wash over us in a world growing ever more interconnected’;
C. Beginning to glean the origins of novelty-seeking (neophilia), free-range imagination, top-down and bottom-up thinking, idea generation, divergent and integrative thinking;
D. How innovative thinkers in disparate fields demonstrate creativity patterns that create paradigm shifts in science, culture, and society.
WE DO KNOW THAT NEWTON thought of gravity when seeing an apple fall. And Einstein apparently thought of gravity when seeing a person fall. Both creative discoveries exhibited “elastic” thinking. Both creative discoveries arrived when they were relaxed, allowing random thoughts to populate their brains. Provocative approaches to creativity are found in “Elastic: Flexible Thinking In A Time Of Change”, Leonard Mlodinow.