Imagery in Scientific Thought: Creating 20th-century Physics

One of the great mysteries of the human mind is its power to create new forms of knowledge. Arthur I. Miller is a historian of science whose approach has been strongly influenced by current work in cognitive science, and in this book he shows how the two fields might be fruitfully linked to yield new insights into the creative process.

The first two sections of this book trace the relationship of creative thinking and the construction of new scientific concepts in the physics of Poincaré, Einstein, Boltzmann, Bohr, and Heisenberg (scientists whose research was influenced by their consideration of the nature of thinking itself). These case studies are then used as data to test the attempts of modern psychologists to account for creative development through Gestalt psychology, cognitive science, and genetic epistemology.

Arthur I. Miller is University Professor of Philosophy and History, University of Lowell, and an Associate of the Physics Department, Harvard University. He is also an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physics.