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Scientific Creativity through the Lens of Art

2020; Elsevier BV; Volume: 2; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.matt.2020.03.021

2590-2393

Alexander Cook,

Academic Writing and Publishing

Materials science brings together many different disciplines in creative and innovative ways. Here, Alexander Cook discusses lessons for scientific creativity that he gleaned from artistic pastimes and continues to other matters, including framing, promoting, and increasing creativity in science. Materials science brings together many different disciplines in creative and innovative ways. Here, Alexander Cook discusses lessons for scientific creativity that he gleaned from artistic pastimes and continues to other matters, including framing, promoting, and increasing creativity in science. It can be said that creativity enhances life. It helps great thinkers, artists, scientists, and leaders of our world to continually push forward new concepts and ways of thinking. This creative impulse is of particular importance to scientific research. Still, many researchers can’t find enough time to be creative. How do we keep pushing forward new concepts and new ways to improve life if there are not enough hours in the day? Many people tend to associate creativity—that is, generating original ideas and concepts—with artistic pursuits like music, art, or drama. In these cases, the creative process helps artists generate ideas and gain that spark of inspiration necessary to approach a blank canvas.1Simonton D.K. Creativity in science: Chance, logic, genius, and zeitgeist. Cambridge University Press, 2004Crossref Scopus (414) Google Scholar Everyone has their own unique way of achieving this. Whereas some prepare extensively with outlines and sketches, others prefer to wait for a lightbulb “Eureka!” moment to kick-start their creation. Comparing the arts and sciences, one might see them as contradictory: unlikely or unable to coexist. Or at least this is what I thought as a teenager. Back then, art was my favorite subject at school. I would spend hours and hours—evenings, mornings, weekends—rendering sketches, drawings, and paintings. I enjoyed checking out different materials, toying with proportions and scales, and exploring the variety of emotional expression embodied in a visual work. I loved the feeling of exploration. My artistic hopes were high. Until, at 17, I was told that my class scheduling couldn’t align, so I had to make a tough decision: to art or not to art? Reluctantly, I had to drop the art classes and follow my other passion—science. Fast forward a few years—it was 2016 and I was completing my PhD in polymer chemistry. Things were going great. My project involved some interesting materials that I was enjoying synthesizing but also involved industrial collaborators and real-world applications. For a year or so, everything seemed to be under control. I was motivated and excited! Until my research seemingly hit a wall—ideas were hard to come by, and I was having difficulty solving problems in the lab that would have previously been easily resolved. I started asking myself, “What should I do?” How could I surpass this roadblock? As lost and confused as a PhD student could get, I turned to my supervisor for help. His advice was to “take a break, do something else, and come back to the problem next week with fresh eyes.” It was a relief to feel like I had the support of a mentor to help navigate through the tough times of research. Feeling supported to make my own decisions in the project relieved some mental pressure and freed up some creative problem-solving potential. I dusted off my sketchbook and pencils for the first time in a decade. The initial results were far from beautiful. But the process itself—seeking inspiration, drawing something from one angle, not liking the outcome, and trying again from a different perspective or with a different technique, hatching, blending, scribbling, or using inks or certain color palettes—was incredibly refreshing. After continuing this hobby for a few months, I soon found ideas for new projects or unusual techniques to characterize different phenomena in the lab, kept appearing to me. Now, as a postdoc, I try to carry a small sketchbook with me wherever I go (Figure 1). I have learned that reconnecting with my art has not only helped with relaxation but also with coming up with creative solutions and new ideas for collaboration in the lab. The only challenge now is finding enough time to follow up on them! I now recognize that art and science share many basic requirements and techniques that rely on creativity and are not so contradictory in the end. The observation of this intimate interaction between science and art is not new. In 1949, Max Planck wrote, “To be sure, when the pioneer in science sends forth the groping feelers of their thoughts, they must have a vivid intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction, but by an artistically creative imagination.”2Planck M. The meaning and limits of exact science.Science. 1949; 110: 319-327Crossref PubMed Scopus (10) Google Scholar Scientific research and development at its core requires challenging existing ways of thinking. We are on a path to discover the unknown and solve problems with no apparent solutions. This means there is often no prescribed route, and under these circumstances, scientists with open and creative minds are often in the best position to make breakthroughs.3Sternberg R.J.E. The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives. CUP Archive, 1988Google Scholar In particular, the multidisciplinary field of materials science is especially compatible with creative thought processes. Materials science incorporates aspects of engineering, chemistry, physics, and biology. Research involving biomedical devices, photovoltaics, or energy storage materials, for example, cannot be comprehended with one discipline and requires the combination of ideas from different fields in creative or less obvious ways. Creativity is sometimes thought of as an inherent ability: you are either born with it or not. However, this is not always the case—there are many ways to enhance or improve your own creativity. In order to think about this, it helps to understand the creative process and the scientific method (Figure 2). The method of procedure that has defined natural science thought processes has evolved naturally over centuries and has been refined by many great scientists and philosophers from Aristotle to Popper.4Laudan L. Theories of scientific method from Plato to Mach: A bibliographical review.Hist. Sci. 1968; 7: 1-63Crossref Scopus (42) Google Scholar It consists of systematic observations, measurement, questioning, creation of hypotheses, testing, and modification of hypotheses. When a certain hypothesis becomes well supported and confirmed by other scientists, a general theory may be developed. On the other hand, the creative thought process can be described by a number of frameworks, including a popular four-stage process that was first described by Graham Wallas in 1926.5Wallas G. The Art of Thought. Harcourt, 1926Google Scholar The creative process of discovering new ideas or concepts or the association of existing ideas or concepts in new ways can be driven by either conscious or unconscious insight. Wallas’s four stages to the process are preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The preparation phase requires sensing of a need, exploration of the problem, reading, discussing, formulating, and analyzing many possible solutions. The critical step is an incubation period, which requires the artist/scientist to let the information gathered in the preparation phase gently ripen and come together in new ways (e.g., questioning), after which can arrive the birth of a new idea or flash of insight (i.e., hypothesis). The final step in this model of the creative process is a short, but usually rapid, period of recording, verifying, and refining the idea (e.g., experimental). The good news is that creativity, and the mentioned four-step framework, can be incorporated into every stage of the scientific method. Therefore, with a measure of self-awareness and understanding of what you find inspirational, one can increase both creativity and productivity fairly easily. Some tips: Embrace contrasts: Creativity can be chaotic and non-linear. Being open minded to contrasts or conflicts can improve creativity by helping you keep all possibilities on the table. Practice artistic hobbies: Imaginative hobbies outside of work, like music, art, photography, writing, or drama, can help nurture your creative thinking process. Creating artistic representations of what you see can change the way you view the world. Numerous scientists and artists, such as Albert Einstein, Frances Arnold, and Paul Klee have discussed the importance of music in their success.6Root-Bernstein R.S. Music, creativity and scientific thinking.Leonardo. 2001; 34: 63-68Crossref Google Scholar, 7Hoban V. Meet Frances Arnold, Teenage Rebel Turned Nobel Laureate.https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/meet-frances-arnold-teenage-rebel-turned-nobel-laureateDate: 2019Google Scholar, 8Verdi R. Musical influences on the art of Paul Klee.Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies. 1968; 3: 81-107Crossref Google Scholar Travel: Foreign travel, meeting new people, and experiencing different cultures can help improve cognitive flexibility and the ability to see other perspectives. This has been shown to improve creativity both anecdotally (for authors like Virgina Woolf, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens) and scientifically by psychologists and neuroscientists.9Maddux W.W. Galinsky A.D. Cultural borders and mental barriers: the relationship between living abroad and creativity.J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 2009; 96: 1047-1061Crossref PubMed Scopus (327) Google Scholar Exercise: Regular physical exercise, such as hiking or cycling, has been shown to improve performance in cognitive tests of creative thinking.10S Colzato L. Szapora A. Pannekoek J.N. Hommel B. The impact of physical exercise on convergent and divergent thinking.Front. Hum. Neurosci. 2013; 7: 824Crossref PubMed Scopus (80) Google Scholar Getting out and about can help overcome mental blocks and trains the brain to think flexibly. Collaborate: Social interactions and collaborations with colleagues are crucial for forming innovative ideas. The impact of a non-judgmental ear can be a catalyst for the brainstorming process. This discussion can also be beneficial for refining ideas later on in the creative process. Science and art can appear very distant from each other: both are thought of as separate entities and are taught separately. However, they rely on complementary thought processes. In reality, the lightbulb moment that inspires an artist with a vision to fill a blank canvas is the same as the “Eureka!” moment of a scientist finally piecing together a new theory. By harnessing our inner creativity we can generate new ideas, have fulfilling collaborations, and produce research that is more impactful. After all, scientific research is a creative profession. Support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 754490 is acknowledged.