Einstein,Bohr,and Creative Thinking in Science

See Frank Phillip , Einstein: His life and times (New York, 1947); Reiser Anton , Albert Einstein (London, 1931); Koestler Arthur , The act of creation (New York, 1964); Hoffman Banesh , Albert Einstein: Creator and rebel (New York, 1972); Holton Gerald , Thematic origins of scientific thought (Cambridge, 1973), 165–380; Pais Abraham , The science and the life of Albert Einstein (New York, 1982); Patten Bradley M. , “Visually mediated thinking: A report of the case of Albert Einstein”, Journal of learning disabilities, vi (1973), 15–20; Wertheimer Max , Productive thinking (New York, 1945).

Hadamard Jacques , The psychology of invention in the mathematical field (Princeton, 1945), 142–3.

Wertheimer , op. cit. (ref. 1), 168–88.

Stekel Wilhelm , Dichtung und Neurose (Weisbaden, 1909); Sachs Hanns , The creative unconscious (Cambridge, Mass., 1942); Kris Ernst , Psychoanalytic explorations in art (New York, 1952).

See, for example, the excellent recent history, Hendry John , The creation of quantum mechanics and the Bohr-Pauli dialogue (Dordrecht, 1984). This contains a complete account of the work and events leading up to Bohr's creation of the complementarity principle, which coincides with the bulk of material I present later here. It does not, however, contain any direct documentation from Bohr's work in progress similar to the manuscript material I cite. Also, see MacKinnon Edward M. , Scientific explanation and atomic physics (Chicago, 1982) which traces the philosophical roots of Bohr's and Einstein's thinking and their contrasting scientific epistemologies. Such matters surely have bearing on the content of the theories developed by each of these highly creative men and, in terms of overall conscious and logical approaches, those matters bear on the type and form of cognition used; they do not, however, provide direct psychological testimony or data about the unfolding process of creation.

Miller Arthur I. , Imagery in scientific thought: Creating 20th century physics (Boston, 1984).

Holton Gerald , “On trying to understand scientific genius”, in Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 363.

Einstein Albert , “Autobiographical notes”, in Schilpp Paul A. (ed.), Albert Einstein philosopher-scientist, i (Evanston, Ill., 1949), 3–95.

Holton Gerald , “Finding favor with the angel of the Lord: Notes toward the psychobiographical study of scientific genius”, in Elkana Yehuda (ed.), The interaction between science and philosophy (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1975), 349–87. Also in Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 363–4; Pais , op. cit. (ref. 1), 178; Miller , op. cit. (ref. 6), 210. The passages quoted here were translated by Holton , and were made available to me by the executors of the Einstein Estate, Otto Nathan and Helen Dukas.

See my “The process of janusian thinking in creativity”, Archives of general psychiatry, xxiv (1971), 195–205; The emerging goddess: The creative process in art, science and other fields (Chicago, 1979); “Janusian thinking and Nobel Prize laureates”, American journal of psychiatry, cxxxix (1982), 122–4; “Psychopathology and creative cognition: A comparison of hospitalized patients, Nobel laureates and controls”, Archives of general psychiatry, xl (1983), 937–42.

ibid. Defined and discovered initially through empirical investigations of the creative process involving a program of extensive and intensive research interviews, carried out over months and years with outstanding American fiction writers and poets, the process has also been identified in interviews and psychological experiments with visual artists, and with American and British creative scientists.

In philosophy and psychology, there are simultaneous antitheses in the conceptions of Being and Becoming, Kierkegaard's belief by virtue of the absurd, Sartre's Being and Non-Being, Nietzsche's Dionysian and Apollonian principles, Freud's conscious together with unconscious and sex together with aggression. In poetry, the critical role of opposition and paradox has been emphasized by the following: Blake William Coleridge Samuel Taylor Brooks Cleanth Graves Robert Lowell Amy Warren Robert Penn Tate Allen , and Ransom John Crowe . See my The emerging goddess (ref. 10).

Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 165–380. See MacKinnon , op. cit. (ref. 5), for an exposition of Einstein's epistemology.

Bohr Niels , “The quantum postulate and the recent development of atomic theory” (Bologna, 1927).

For discussion of this definition of creative effects and of creativity, see my “The iceman changeth: Toward an empirical approach to creativity”, Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, xvii (1969), 549–607, and Rothenberg Albert and Hausman Carl R. , The creativity question (Durham, N.C., 1976).

Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 115–61.

MacKinnon , op. cit. (ref. 5).

Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 141–2.

Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1); Miller , op. cit. (ref. 6); MacKinnon , op. cit. (ref. 5).

Interviews of Werner Heisenberg by Kuhn Thomas S. (recorded): 25 February 1963; 27 February 1963; 5 July 1963 (T. S. K. and J. L. H.); 12 July 1963 (American Institute of Physics Library, New York City, N.Y.)

Heisenberg Werner , Physics and beyond: Encounters and conversations (New York, 1971), 76.

ibid., 77.

Heisenberg Werner , “Quantum theory and its interpretation”, in Rozental Stefan (ed.), Niels Bohr: His life and work as seen by his friends and colleagues (New York, 1964), 94–108.

Bohr Margarethe , personal correspondence, 1980; Darwin Charles G. , letter to Niels Bohr, 24 November 1926 (American Institute of Physics Library, New York City, N.Y.). Emphasis added.

See Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 133, for a stepwise description and an assessment of the shift.

Heisenberg , op. cit. (ref. 20), 25 February 1963, 7.

ibid., 12 July 1963, 16.

Dirac Paul A. M. , “The versatility of Niels Bohr”, in Rozental , op. cit. (ref. 23), 309. Emphasis added.

Bohr Hans , “My father”, in Rozental, op. cit. (ref. 23), 328.

Heisenberg , op. cit. (ref. 20), 25 February 1963, 18.

Bohr Niels , op. cit. (ref. 14), 3.

Miller Arthur I. , “Visualization lost and regained: The genesis of the quantum theory in the period 1913–1927”, in Wechsler Judith (ed.), On aesthetics in science (Cambridge, Mass., 1979), 73–102.

Heisenberg , op. cit. (ref. 23).

Bohr Niels , “The philosophical foundations of the quantum theory” (manuscript, The American Institute of Physics Library, New York City, N.Y., 1927), 2. Emphasis added.

Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 148.

Translation by Sonne Harley . Emphasis added.

Hegel George W. F. , The science of logic (1816), The encyclopedia of the philosophical sciences, trans. by Wallace William (London, 1965).

See Rosenfeld Leon , “Niels Bohr's contribution to epistemology”, Physics today, xvi (1963), 47–54; idem, “Niels Bohr in the Thirties”, in Rozental , op. cit. (ref. 23), 114–36; Bohr Hans , “My father”, in Rozental , op. cit. (ref. 23); Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 115–61.

Holton points out that Bohr sent his brother Harald the book, Stages on life's way, by Kierkegaard as a birthday present in 1909, with a very positive inscription. Holton , op. cit. (ref. 1), 144–5.

Heisenberg , op. cit. (ref. 20), 27 February 1963, 26–27.

ibid., 27.

See my “Translogical secondary process cognition in creativity”, Journal of altered states of consciousness, iv (1978–79), 171–87.

Freud described a type of thinking called ‘primary process’, which he believed to be a characteristic mode in early childhood, dreams, regressive psychopathological conditions, and primitive peoples. In primary process thinking, opposites are equivalent and may be substituted for each other; also, negatives and contradictions are absent. Freud Sigmund , The interpretation of dreams, ii (1900–1), in The complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud, v (London, 1953). This mode differs from janusian process in that opposites and antitheses are always considered simultaneously and side by side, and the factor of contradiction is included and acknowledged.

Miller , op. cit. (ref. 6).

See my The emerging goddess (ref. 10), and also “Artistic creation as stimulated by combined-composite versus superimposed visual images”, Journal of personality and social psychology, 1 (1986), 370–81.

It is noteworthy that Miller , op. cit. (ref. 6), 210, quotes only the first part of the same Einstein document that I have quoted above; i.e., he does not give the detailed quotation after the following sentence: “The phenomenon of the electromagnetic induction forced me to postulate the (special) relativity principle.” Although he is justifiably interested primarily in the special relativity theory at that point in the book, he later slides over and ignores the implications of the simultaneous antithesis of the man at rest and motion in the remainder of the passage, as outlined here.

See my “The process of homospatial thinking in creativity”, Archives of general psychiatry, xxxiii (1976), 17–26.

For further detailed elaboration of the operation of this process in both scientific and artistic creation, see my The emerging goddess (ref. 10) and op. cit. (ref. 45).

Einstein , of course, never accepted the postulates of quantum theory or complementarity — for reasons not pertinent here. MacKinnon , op. cit. (ref. 5), 140–5; Pais , op. cit. (ref. 1), 383–4.

See my The emerging goddess (ref. 10), Darwin's conceptualization of natural selection, Pasteur's discovery of the sterochemical structure of the tartrates and of the mechanism responsible for immunization, Fermi's use of slow neutrons to bombard the atomic nucleus and Watson's formulation of the spatial structure of the double helix, McMillan's conception of phase stability and discovery of the synchrotron, all involved the janusian process at a critical phase.