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
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Preface:
A Personal Statement
The idea of writing a book on creativity started some ten years ago with two motives. The first was, of course, to make a useful contribution to the field as a practitioner. After all, creativity is not an ability which is reserved for the chosen few. One does not need be a Newton, Tagore, or a Picasso, to qualify as a creative person. The difference between the creative and the non-creative individuals simply is that the former have a greater facility in unblocking their creativity - an ability with which each of us is endowed. And there are methods and techniques which can help releasing this unique potential in people.
The second reason - and in some ways, this was personally more significant - was to share some personal insights about this strange capability. There is something mysterious, thrilling and adventurous about creativity. Exploring creativity, one came across conclusions, which upturned the nature of reality and our place in it. These conclusions were insightful for not only innovating ideas for a marketable product, but also for sculpting amazing thoughts about human potentials.
Just to take one example, there is this mystery of "simultaneous inventions":
- Newton and Leibnitz independently and simultaneously discovered calculus;
- Darwin and Alfred Wallace worked separately to arrived at identical theory of evolution of the species;
- Graham Bell and Elisha Grey applied for the patent of telephone on the same day (Bell got the patent by a few hours);
- Rubic cube was simultaneously conceived and designed by Rubic and a Japanese inventor;
- Nylon was simultaneously developed in New York and London (therefore, the name NyLon).
You also have other astounding facts around similar theme. Around the time, in late 1920s-early 1930s, when Werner Heisenberg was propounding his famous "Uncertainty Principle", Professor Elton Mayo of Pennsylvania University was discovering the "Hawthorne Effect". The interesting thing is that while Heisenberg was a quantum physicist and Mayo was an industrial psychologist, there theories said essentially the same thing: one changes the nature of the phenomenon in the process of observing it. To describe such occurrences as mere coincidence is to deprive them of their capacity to jolt us into taking note.
In addition, there were the other issues of the eccentricities of the creative persons, of their capacity to be surprised, of the overpowering nature of inspirations, of the role of unconscious mind, of the nearing-paranormal nature of many creative products, and so on. And the equally amazing fact that great minds which are capable of creating the strangest of innovative ideas, so often become stubbornly rigid and inflexible in accepting similar other ones (after all, it was Einstein, who on one hand could think up of a new paradigm-breaking model of universe, but remained the bitterest critic of another revolutionary model, the quantum theory). To write about creativity, without discussing to these aspects - even if one was not able to fully explain them - would have been to present only an incomplete picture.
The problem was how to write the book. Since then, much time and energy went by in finding the right structure for the book which could combine both the objectives. The first focus - the mundane, practical aspects - was easy to write about. I wrote some papers about harnessing creativity, blocks to creativity, creative techniques and its management, which found their way in magazines and journals of business management. But they somehow lacked a soul; they only described what is known about the phenomenon, while cleverly circumventing the unknowns.
The difficulty was in writing about the unknowns - about those exciting facets of creativity which defy a clearcut rational understanding, and which challenge the known features of reality. These were the aspects which made creativity hang on the fringes of the madness and the spirituality, at the same time. Not that I did not try - in fact, once I even left a job to undertake this venture full-time - but somehow it did not work out. After making some headway with the proposed book (to be christened The Divine Madness), I realised that it was becoming much too analytical and academic. By the third chapter it had ceased to be exciting, and I left it incomplete.
It was after quite some time, the idea of writing about - one should say exploring - the subject came back once again. A few days back, I read a fable:
Whenever there was misfortune in the land, the great Rabbi would go to certain parts of the forest. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and miraculously the misfortune would be averted.
When the great Rabbi died, his principle disciple carried on with the custom. When the misfortune would strike the land, he would go to the same place in the forest, and say: "O Lord! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer." And again, the miracle would happen.
Still later, when the disciple died, his own appointed pupil would go to the forest to save the people of the land. He would say: "I do not know how to light the fire, and I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this should be sufficient."
And then it fell on the newest rabbi to overcome the misfortunes. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.
God made man because He loves stories.
I knew how to write the book. It took just two weeks to finish it.
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