Flight from Wonder reports the findings from an empirical study of 45 Nobel laureates in science from the United States and Europe concerning the creative processes that produce scientific discoveries. To this end, Albert Rothenberg designed an interview procedure to delineate the content and sequences of processes that lead scientists to specific creative achievements. He conducted interviews with Nobel laureates in the fields of medicine, physiology, physics, and chemistry and carried out matching interviews with a control group consisting of twelve accomplished engineers on the faculty of a leading engineering university. Rothenberg's results demonstrate that the Nobel laureates use three distinct cognitive creative processes to achieve key formulations and discoveries; the detailed nature and structure of these findings were reviewed by the Nobel laureates. To predict his findings, Rothenberg engaged with autobiographical accounts and work-in-progress manuscripts pertaining to the creative discoveries of outstanding scientists of the past including Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, Max Planck, Neils Bohr, Hideki Yukawa, and James Watson. The book will interest students and general readers fascinated by creativity and the development of scientific inquiry and innovation.

Flight from Wonder: An Investigation of Scientific Creativity

Science & Math

Rothenberg MD, Albert

History & Philosophy

Oxford University Press

Intrigued by history's list of "troubled geniuses,"Albert Rothenberg investigates how two such opposite conditions-outstanding creativity and psychosis-could coexist in the same individual. Rothenberg concludes that high-level creativity transcends the usual modes of logical thought-and may even superficially resemble psychosis. But he also discovers that all types of creative thinking generally occur in a rational and conscious frame of mind, not in a mystically altered or transformed state. Far from being the source-or the price-of creativity, Rothenberg discovers, psychosis and other forms of mental illness are actually hindrances to creative work. Disturbed writers and absent-minded professors make great characters in fiction, but Rothenberg has uncovered an even better story-the virtually infinite creative potential of healthy human beings.

Creativity and Madness: New Findings and Old Stereotypes

Self-Help

Creativity

Johns Hopkins University Press

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Books by Rothenberg MD, Albert