THE JANUSIAN PROCESS IN SCIENTIFIC CREATIVITY

Twenty-two Nobel laureates in the fields of chemistry, physics, and me dicine and physiology from Europe and the United States were interview ed according to a systematic research protocol focused on in-progress creative work. Twelve of these subjects had also participated in a con trolled experiment involving word-association tasks. Documentary inves tigations were separately carried out on autobiographical accounts and work-in-progress manuscripts pertaining to the creative formulations and discoveries of outstanding scientists of the past-Bohr, Darwin, Di rac, Einstein, Planck, and Yukawa. Included was a personal account by Einstein about the breakthrough idea leading to the general theory of relativity. Overall analysis of the data regarding the creative work o f the contemporary outstanding scientists and those of the past indica ted the significant role in scientific creation of the janusian proces s (''actively conceiving multiple opposites or antitheses simultaneous ly''). This process was found to be complex, involving four phases dev eloping over extended periods of time. The phases, described and docum ented in this article, are motivation To create; deviation or separati on; simultaneous opposition or antithesis; and construction of the the ory, discovery, or experiment.