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In 1905, at the age of twenty-six, Albert
Einstein published five journal articles, three of which
are said to be among the greatest in the history of physics.
In trying to explain the origins of his ideas, Einstein
said that all of his most important and productive thinking
was done by "combinatory play" with "images"
in his mind. Only at a secondary stage did he "laboriously"
translate these images into "conventional words"
or the signs of mathematics.
According to Thomas G. West, Albert Einstein
was a classic example of a strong visual thinker, a person
who tends to think in images and visual patterns and sometimes
has difficulty with words and numbers. In West's award-winning
book, In the Mind's Eye, he discussed connections
between highly talented, visually oriented people like Einstein
and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Now, in Thinking
Like Einstein, West investigates the new worlds of visual
thinking, insight, and creativity made possible by computer
graphics and information visualization technologies. He
argues that with the rapid spread of less costly but powerful
computers, humanity is now at the beginning of a major transition,
moving from an old world based mainly on words and numbers
to a new world where high-level work in all fields will
eventually involve insights based on the display and manipulation
of complex information using moving computer images.
In Thinking Like Einstein, West profiles
several highly creative visual thinkers, such as James Clerk
Maxwell, Nikola Tesla, and Richard Feynman, pointing out
that there is a long history of using visualization rather
than words or numbers to solve problems. Citing the longstanding
historical conflicts between image lovers and image haters,
West examines the relationship of art, scientific knowledge,
and differences in brain capabilities -- observing how modern
visual thinkers with visualization technologies seem to
have learned how to cut through the problems of overspecialization
in academia and in the workplace.
West predicts that computer visualization
technology will radically change the way we all work and
think. For thousands of years, the technology of writing
and reading has tended to promote the dominance of the left
hemisphere of the brain, with its linear processing of words
and numbers. Now the spread of graphical computer technologies
permits a return to our visual roots with a new balance
between the hemispheres and their respective ways of thinking
-- presenting new opportunities for problem solving and
big-picture thinking. Thus the newest technologies will
help us to reaffirm some of our oldest capabilities, allowing
us to see previously unseen patterns and to restore a balance
in human thought and action.
Thomas G. West is affiliated with the
Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study (Fairfax, Virginia).
He writes the "Images and Reversals" column for
Computer Graphics (from which several of the chapters
of this book were adapted). West's first book, In the
Mind's Eye, now in its fourteenth printing, has been
recognized by the American Library Association with a gold
seal as an "outstanding academic title" (1997)
and later as one of the "best of the best" for
the year (1998). West has appeared on television programs
broadcast on PBS and the BBC and has been invited to provide
presentations for scientific, medical, art, and business
groups in the United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, and seven European countries.
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