Say What?

As Galileo and the Pontiff of the day were strolling the promenade, Galileo said “You know Your Excellency; I believe Copernicus had something when he said that the earth is not the centre of the universe”.

Or when the Heinz Food Packaging suggested to the VP of Marketing that the top of the Ketchup bottle should be the bottom.

How about when Robert Hooke told Christopher Wren that he was quitting the rebuild of London after the great fire to invent the chronometer.

It would have been most interesting to be at a scientific meeting when Isaac Newton said that the rainbow effect from a prism originated from the splitting of light into different wave lengths and not from something originating inside the prism itself.

Imagine the reaction of the President of Bulova Watch when it was suggested by Warren Marrison that the watch of the future would depend on striking a quartz crystal causing it to vibrate at an exact number of cycles per second.

And when, at a medical seminar, Edward Jenner lectured on a preventative measure for small pox by vaccinating with the cow pox virus, a milder form of small pox.

What a wonder to be the long distance telephone operator and over-hearing the Head of the Swedish Academy tell Marie Curie that she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. It was her second such honour; earlier she received the Noble Prize in Physics.

Two recent events remind us of the huge impact creativity has  on our lives. One is the passing of Steve Jobs and the second the awarding of the Nobel Prizes. The question is what generates such creativity? Whatever the answers are, we need the results in spades.

Originally published on October 11, 2011