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The Creative Muse: Stories of Creativity & Innovation

Madhukar Shukla


  • Preface
  • Introduction

    STORIES:

  • Discoveries about Creativity
  • Laws Of Planetary Motion
  • Electricity From Clouds
  • Band-Aid
  • Pneumatic Tyres
  • Gummed Paper
  • The Trap Of Paradigm
  • Invention Of Sewing Machine
  • Just-In-Time System
  • Transmission of Nerve Impulses
  • Printing Press
  • Dangers Of Locomotives
  • Flashlight
  • Lawn Mower
  • Phonograph
  • Rubber Heels
  • The Periodic Table
  • Discovery Of Electromagnetic Fields
  • The Tao Of Physics
  • Congenital Impact of Rubella
  • Typewriter
  • The Theory Of Evolution
  • The Benzene Ring
  • The Wreck Of Titanic
  • Wagner's Rheingold
  • Underwater Construction
  • Search For The "Hidden Likeness"
  • Fermi & Nuclear Fission
  • Cash Register
  • Discovery Of Current Electricity
  • Cure Of Diabetes
  • Boolean Algebra
  • Principle Of Photosynthesis
  • Ball Point Pen
  • The X-Ray
  • The Fuschian Functions
  • Safety Glass
  • The Creative Triggers
  • Why Aeroplanes Cannot Fly
  • The "Brownies" Of Stevenson
  • The Blunder That Founded 3M
  • Invention Of AC Motor
  • Discovery Of Teflon
  • Toynbee's The Study Of History
  • Inventors' Blindness
  • The Excitement Of Creativity
  • Electric Fan
  • How Typhus Gets Transmitted
  • Proof Of The Big Bang
  • Mathematical Theory Of Chance
  • Coleridge's Kubla Khan
  • Vulcanisation Process
  • Structure Of The Crystals
  • The Compulsion To Create
  • 3M's Post-It Note Pads
  • Ice Cream Cones
  • The Structural Theory Of Atom
  • IBM And Computers
  • Helicopter
  • How Experts Resist Ideas
  • Creative Reveries Of Enid Blyton
  • Predictions In Gulliver's Travels
  • Float Glass Technology
  • Principle Of Immunisation
  • Journey Into Unknown
  • The Genius Of Karl Fredrich Gauss
  • Jean Coceteau's The Knights Of The Round Table
  • Neon Light
  • Transistor Radios
  • Precocious Minds?
  • The Masterpiece Of Sir Walter Scott
  • The "Fraud" That Changed The World
  • The "99% Perspiration"
  • Xeroxing
  • The Poem Of Stephen Spender
  • The Anatomy Of Inspiration
  • Travellers' Cheques
  • Edison's Fraud
  • Awe, Wonder And Alienation
  • The Logic Of Irrational

  • Epilogue: Themes & Patterns

    • The Logic of Irrational


    If you thinks that science is the rational pursuit of natural laws, you are in for a surprise. According to the statements of some the greatest scientists of this century, science is more an art of the irrational. When asked if he works out his theorems in a step-by-step manner, Albert Einstein is reported to have retorted: "Nobody thinks in such paper fashion." In fact, he asserted: "There are no logical paths to such natural laws, only intuition can reach them."

    Here are some more of these words of wisdom from these creative geniuses:

      • Paul Dirac was a genius among quantum physicists, having established his reputation as a theoretical physicist at an early age of twenty-five. Describing how he works, he wrote: "A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give... I think it's a peculiarity of myself that I like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don't have any physical meaning at all. Sometimes they do."

      • Paul Dirac's playfulness is shared by another physicist, Nobel Laureate David Bohm: "New thought generally arise with a play of mind, and failure to appreciate this is actually one of the major blocks to creativity... Play, it appears, is of the very essence of thought."

      • Another physicist, Max Born, saw scientific venture as a directionless activity. He wrote: "...we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error, building our roads behind us as we proceed."

      • Max Planck was even more articulate about the ineffectiveness of the rational. He wrote the "pure rationalist has no place" in science. He went on to say that science "cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of the nature and therefore part of the mystery... you are always being brought face to face with the irrational."

      • Albert Einstein wrote to mathematician Jaques Hadamard, "The word or the language, as they are written and spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be "voluntarily" reproduced and combined.... The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some muscular types."


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