Box of delight

In his famous Rede Lecture of 1959, chemist and novelist C P Snow spoke of the separation of science and the humanities, and the lack of respect and understanding that often exists between the fields. He argued that this was detrimental to the future success of the country as many creative breakthroughs come from the interaction between the two cultures. Snow put a large part of the blame on what he called “our fanatical belief in educational specialisation” and focusing on “producing a tiny elite educated in one academic skill”. Unfortunately, not much seems to have changed.

Everybody can think creatively – including you.

When you think about creativity, it might be highly creative people like Mozart, da Vinci or Einstein who spring to mind. They were all considered to be “geniuses” for their somewhat unique talents that led to global innovation in their fields. Their type of creativity is what’s known as “Big C creativity” (or historical) and is not very common in everyday life. Not all of us can create works of art or music or scientific theories that are new to the world.