Don Lincoln: preference

Transcript context

…I guess, I wonder if you can comment on what do you think is the idea generation process that leads to that. So probably an Einstein case has to start with what if gravity is itself space-time geometry? You have to have a thought like that, right? Yes, I think so. There’s a lot about science. There’s, of course, knowing what went before. There is knowing the mathematics that allows you to figure out the implications of your theory. There is the discipline to argue with yourself and other people because most ideas are wrong. But then there’s what you just described, that intuitive spark, and that is something that is very, very difficult to create. There’s a reason that we venerate these people, is because it is an unusual feature, and most people only have that aha moment once in their lifetime, if they have it at all. And then there’s a tricky business because I’m sure you do, and I get a lot of letters from creative thinkers who don’t have all of the history and the mathematical discipline and the self-critique that’s necessary. And so they come up with these ideas, and often it’s easy to see where they just don’t play out. So in order to be that person who changes the way we see the world, ideas themselves are not enough. These creative ideas, that’s not enough. You need it with the discipline and the critique, and it’s that amalgam of those things that you know, make you a genius that history remembers. But it’s hard to know. In a field of people you might be tempted to call crazy, there could be geniuses there, and it’s hard to know which is which. We should mention that Einstein himself couldn’t see the genius in quantum mechanics initially, couldn’t see the correctness, I should say. So he could see the insanity of gravity bending space-time, but quantum mechanics was too weird for Einstein.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.