Creativity and Big Science

NOV 01, 1992

The idea of creativity in science is contemporary with the institution of the Nobel Prizes. To excel at today’s big science, however, may require a type of creativity different from that rewarded by the early Nobels.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881322

John L. Heilbron

Creativity and big science may sit uneasily together. Creativity is considered good in any amount; I do not recall ever hearing anyone complain of having more of it than he or she wanted. Big science, however, has its detractors. Some fret that it consumes resources better devoted to little science; others, that it routinizes work, bureaucratizes laboratory life and, to say the worst, suppresses creativity.

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More about the authors

John L. Heilbron, University of California, Berkeley.