Synopses & Reviews
In the evolution of science and technology, laws governing exceptional creativity and innovation have yet to be discovered. The historian Thomas Kuhn, in his influential study
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, noted that the final stage in a scientific breakthrough such as Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity—that is, the most crucial stage—was “inscrutable.” The same is still true half a century later. Yet, there has been considerable progress in understanding many of the stages and facets of exceptional creativity and innovation. In
Exceptional Creativity in Science and Technology editor Andrew Robinson gathers together a diverse group of contributors to explore this progress. This new collection arises from a symposium with the same title held at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), in Princeton. Organized by the John Templeton Foundation, the symposium had as its chair the late distinguished doctor and geneticist Baruch S. Blumberg, while its IAS host was the well-known physicist Freeman J. Dyson—both of whom have contributed chapters to the book. In addition to scientists, engineers, and an inventor, the book’s fifteen contributors include an economist, entrepreneurs, historians, and sociologists, all working at leading institutions, including Bell Laboratories, Microsoft Research, Oxford University, Princeton University, and Stanford University. Each contributor brings a unique perspective to the relationships between exceptional scientific creativity and innovation by individuals and institutions. The diverse list of disciplines covered, the high-profile contributors (including two Nobel laureates), and their fascinating insights into this overarching question—
how exactly do we make breakthroughs?—will make this collection of interest to anyone involved with the creative process in any context, but it will be especially appealing to readers in scientific and technological fields.
Review
"Following a series of outstanding books on various aspects of the history of science, Andrew Robinson has now edited a fascinating work which explores the origins of some of the greatest scientific institutions in the world and their innovations which have changed all our lives and had a remarkable effect in boosting the economies of the countries in which they were developed. While this fascinating story of the complex evolution of great science and its institutions will be of particular interest to the scientific community, given their great importance to all of us for the future it should attract a much broader audience in particular representing education, commerce, and politics. I wish it all the success that it deserves." —Sir David Weatherall, FRS, Regius Professor of Medicine Emeritus, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford
About the Author
Andrew Robinson is a former literary editor of the
Times Higher Education Supplement in London. He is the author of some twenty-five books in the arts and sciences published by trade and academic publishers, which have been translated into fifteen languages. They include the biographies
The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris and
Einstein: A Hundred Years of Relativity; and two studies of exceptional creativity in the arts and sciences:
Sudden Genius? The Gradual Path to Creative Breakthroughs and
Genius: A Very Short Introduction. His latest books are
Cracking the Egyptian Code: The Revolutionary Life of Jean-François Champollion, and an edited collection,
The Scientists: An Epic of Discovery, with contributions from scientists, historians of science, and science writers. A King’s Scholar of Eton College, he holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and was a visiting fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge from 2006–10.