Creativity in Research

Dr.C.Balaji
Professor
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
IIT Madras , Chennai

Outline of the talk

Becoming a fully professional researcher

Sternbergs theory of crea7vity
The 10000 hour rule
Role of stress in research
Medawar ideas on research problems
Lessons from lives of Nobel laureates
Traits of a crea7ve engineer
Summary and ways to improve crea7vity

What is a Ph.D?
In a lighter vein!

In a lighter vein!

From Resonance, publication of Indian Academy of Sciences

In a lighter vein

From: www.cs.vu.nl/~frankh/cartoons.html

In the lightest vein!

Becoming a fully professional researcher

Fundamental level we have something to say that
our peers want to listen to
Command of our subject required for this
Need to have mastery of appropriate techniques in
the eld
Need to gure out where we can make a
contribu7on

Becoming a fully professional researcher

Should be able to communicate our ideas through
papers and presenta7ons eec7vely
Should be able to guide PhD students sooner than
later (In academia!)
In industry, must be able to write and defend our
own proposals for research and development.
Peer group must become truly interna7onal!

AFributes of a good researcher

Sound grasp of fundamentals

Mastery of techniques in the eld
Tenacity and perseverance
Scholarship
Communica7on skills

CreaHvity oJen neglected!!!

What is creaHvity ?

A crea7ve person does things that have never been
done before
Important instances of crea7vity:
discoveries of new knowledge in science and
medicine
inven7on of new technology
composing beau7ful music
analyzing a situa7on (e.g. in law, philosophy, or
history) in a new way.

Sternbergs theory of creaHvity

Numerous hypothesis and theories
of crea7vity are available
We will see the one by Prof.
Sternberg, Yale University
He gives a list of must have for
being crea7ve

Intelligence

Analy7c intelligence: Problem solving. Ge\ng the correct
solu7on, when we know that there is only one solu7on
(academic)

Synthe7c intelligence: Ability to combine exis7ng informa7on
in a new way. Giving o-beat solu7ons
Prac7cal intelligence:
(a) Ability to adapt to everyday needs with exis6ng knowledge
and skills
(b) Ability to sell ones ideas to the funding agencies,
managers, editors, and reviewers.
Sternberg, R. J. (1985): Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intelligence,
Cambirdge

Knowledge

Gives the ability to recognize what is genuinely
new.
Gives the skills to :
design experiments
design new products
analyze experimental results
do scien5c computa5on and so on

Thinking styles

Crea7ve people ques7on conven7onal wisdom,
assump7ons and rules.

Personality

Because of thinking styles, crea7ve people get into

conicts with the society around them.

To be creaHve one needs to be

Persistent

Tenacious
Uncompromising
Stubborn
Arrogant (?)

Hard work: The 10000 hour rule

It takes 10000 hours of extensive training to excel

in anything

Herbert Simon, Nobel Laureate

One needs to put in 10,000 hours to be an expert in any eld,

whether it is research, art or sports.
Contrary to popular percep7on, it is not always innate talent
or genius alone that mabers

Ul7mately, the hard work alone mabers, which means
ANYONE can do it!!

The 10000 hour rule

What exactly is this rule?
It takes approximately 10,000 hours of deliberate
prac7ce/study to master a skill/area of research
Hours of work/practice per day Period required, years
3
10
8 (full time employment)
5
10-12
3-4

Ph.D.

The 10000 hour rule

Man behind this: Prof. Anders Ericsson, Florida State
Univ.
Chase and Ericsson, 1982, Psychology of Learning and
Mo7va7on (vol.16), Academic Press, New York

Popularized by Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, 2008,

Allen Lane

Mozart
Beatles
Bill Gates
All Chess GMs

Hard Work is the Key

Science progresses through hard work, failures and
frustra7ons!
The human element of these travails- Not seen in
publica7ons!
Society abaches way too much importance to
success.
Its importance to hard work is condi7onal upon
some nal success!
This is someHmes the tragedy!!

MoHvaHon

MoHvaHon propels hard work!

Mo7va7on:
(a) Intrinsic: Crea7ve people genuinely enjoy their work
and set their own goals
(b)Extrinsic: Money, promo7on, prizes, praise, fame and so
on.
In very highly crea7ve people (b) is not so important as (a)

Environment

A conducive environment is a genuine
plus

May not be absolutely necessary.
Srinivasa Ramanujam (Indian
Mathematcian and number theorist)
carried outstanding work under adverse
condiHons, most of his life!
SomeHmes, adversity brings out the
best in a person!

Srinivasa Ramanujam
(1887-1920)
FRS - 1918

Role of stress in Research

Discontent with the present is the rst step towards
progress
Hence, progress is all about Op7mal
disenchantment and channelizing this
disenchantment
Achievement is all about Op7mal nervousness.
Eustress is required for bringing out the best in us.
Stress by itself is not stressful un7l it becomes
distress

Eustress beFers the performance ?

Yerkes Dodson curve

Yerkes RM, Dodson JD,1908), Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology,

Role of hard work

Oj repeated - hard work is the key!
Even so, this can never be overstated
New evidence only conrms this more and more

HOW DOES CREATIVITY OCCUR?

Concep7on of a new idea ojen occurs in an intui7ve

ash of insight, in which more or less the complete
idea is related

Journal publicaHons do not reveal the full story

A scholarly publica7on of the nal result can
lead to misunderstandings about how science
is actually accomplished!
Pains, frsutra7ons and failures not reported
and are not of interest to reviewers and
editors!
Makes people mistake that the progress is
very uniform and linear!

Typical progress in research

Does not follow a linear
curve
Typically follows a log-
sigmoidal curve
P = (1/(1+exp(-t))
Where P is the
dimensionless progress and
t is the 7me.

Principal way for occurrence of creatvity

Look for alterna7ve ways to view a phenomenon or
alterna7ve ways to ask a ques7on
Eg: Want to prove that 2 is irraHonal?
Assume it is ra7onal!
Proceed with logical steps
Come to some absurd conclusions
Therefore original assump7on should be wrong!

ReducHo ad absurdum!

Gefng the right problem to solve

in research
" It is easy to ask questions that are trivial to solve
" It is also easy to ask questions that require
extraordinary effort (50 man-years of effort)
" It is surprisingly difficult to find questions that lie
in between these two extremes, and also have a
result that is worth knowing.

Payo vs. Diculty in Research Problems

Research Art of the Soluble

First coined by Craig Loehle, Bioscience, 40,

123-129

Sir Peter Medawar

(1915-1987)
Nobel Prize -1960
(medicine)

Velcro
George de Mestrals observa7on of how cockleburs
abach to clothing
Led to his inven7on of Velcro
He transformed a common nuisance to a useful
product !

Post It!!
Art Frys development of PostIt removable notes at
3M corpora7on in 1974



Dr. Spencer Silver, another 3M scien7st, developed a
polymer that was a poor adhesive as it took years
to set.

Post It!!
Fry wanted a beber bookmark and used Spencers
adhesive

By ignoring conven7onal wisdom, Fry developed a
highly successful oce product.

Management of CreaHvity

" Important discoveries were made
accidentally.
" If the discoverer had some spare time,
he/she could investigate this unexpected
result

Management of CreaHvity

" People who are normally intelligent and crea7ve and

who are familiar with the subject maber, generally
have good intui7on for when some unexpected
occurrence is worth exploring further.
" They need to be encouraged at this point of 7me,
even if it interferes with the rigid schedule.

Nobel prize winners and famous scienHsts

Competent Scien7sts: Those who were in the right place
at the right 7me.
(b) True genius: Ability to repeatedly develop signicant
innova7ve ideas (e.g. Einstein)
How do we then encourage discoveries to occur more
frequently ?

Lessons from History

History shows that many discoveries are made by
young scien7sts during their M.S/PhD or in the few
years ajer their PhD
A young scien7st has all the basic skills (Calculus,
Dieren7al equa7ons, Programming, Sta7s7cs,
Scien7c theories) but is inexperienced and this is a
virtue

Lessons from History

When someone has worked or lived in an
environment for more that 10 years, he/she tends to
be less curious because of familiarity
One solu7on: Change elds once in ten years(?)

Slide 39/75

Prof.S.Chandrasekhar (1910-1995)
Indian Astrophysicist
1929 1939: Stellar structure, theory of
white dwarfs
1939 -1943: Stellar dynamics
1943 -1950: RadiaHve transfer, quantum
theory of the negaHve ion of hydrogen
1950-1961: Hydrodynamic and
hydromagneHc stability
1960-1970: Equilibrium and stability of
ellipsoidal gures, general relaHvity.
1971-1983: MathemaHcal theory of
black holes
1983-1995: Theory of colliding
gravitaHonal waves

FRS 1944
Nobel Prize- 1983

Why are Designs/concepts not CreaHve??

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Bad goal

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Simplicity
Most complex of all is to
simplify
One of the important goals
of teaching too!
Please take a look at
Edward de Bonos brilliant
book on Simplicity!

Edward de Bono- 1933-

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Traits of the Creative Engineer

Checklist for an engineering design/research

problem

Can we change something in the exis7ng system to give

beber results?
a. Can we rearrange it ?
b. Can we increase or decrease something ?
c. Can we invert something making moving parts
sta7onary and vice versa?
d. Can we look at asymptotes to the problem?
e. Can we try scale analysis?

Deny that the problem exists ? Can we do away with the

problem ?

Checklist for a Research/Design Problem

What similar problems exist in other areas
whose solution might give hints (analogy
method)?
Look for ways nature might have solved
similar problems ( e.g. Genetic algorithms, Ant
colony optimization, Bombardier beetle action)
What prior solutions, though not efficient,
exist?

Ant Colony OpHmizaHon

A probabilis7c technique to solve
computa7onal problems.
Inspired by the foraging behavior of ants.
Well suited for combinatorial problems and mul7-
parameter op7miza7on.
Uses the concept of pheromone trail to iden7fy the path
that results in the best value for the objec7ve func7on.

IllustraHon of pheromone trail

Image Courtesy: Perretto and Lopes, Reconstruction of phylogenetic trees using

the ant colony optimization paradigm, Genetic and Molecular Research, 4, 2005,
pp 581-589

Ant Colony OpHmizaHon

GeneHc Algorithm
A search technique used to nd exact or
approximate solu7ons to op7miza7on problems.
An evolu7onary approach to op7miza7on.
Based on the processes of selec7on, crossover,
recombina7on and muta7on to arrive at an op7mal
solu7on.
Very useful in obtaining global op7mum in
complicated situa7ons.

Some of our recent research results with GA

The op7mal heat distribu7on in an array of chips for
a given total amount of heat to be dissipated.
Objec7ve: Minimize the maximum temperature
(ojen called the MINIMAX criterion)
Flow
out
Flow
out

PCB of
200mm 200mm 3mm

Line of
symmetry
5
Heat
sources

Y
X
Z

1
0

5
5

4
4

3
3

z
47.5
mm

15 mm

2
2
7.5 mm
1
1

Heat source of
15mm15mm6
mm
Flow
in

Approach
Use CFD to simulate temperature distribu7on in the geometry
Conduct parametric studies by changing q1..q15.
Construct a nueral network to replace 7me consuming CFD
calcula7ons.
Neural network output is max temp given any combina7on of
q1q15.
Combine neural network with an op7miza7on method (here
Gene7c Algorithms) to choose combina7on of q1..q15 that
minimizes the maximum temperature anywhere in the
geometry (Called HYBRID approach)

Optimum heat distribution among 15 heat sources (ANN plus GA)

Left Column

Middle Column

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Qi, W

Qi, W

Right Column

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Qi, W

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

1.0948

1.107

77.3

77.1

84.0

0.6659

0.640

77.0

77.7

78.3

1.0948

1.089

77.3

77.1

82.7

0.5879

0.592

73.5

73.3

75.1

0.5843

0.594

77.2

77.0

76.8

0.5879

0.584

73.5

73.3

72.9

1.0272

1.021

77.3

77.1

78.0

0.0229

0.024

70.4

70.2

64.2

1.0272

1.081

77.3

77.1

74.9

1.0342

1.035

77.1

76.7

72.7

0.6274

0.606

77.0

77.0

69.8

1.0342

1.010

77.1

76.7

70.5

1.9968

2.015

77.0

76.0

76.3

1.6177

1.586

77.4

76.4

71.1

1.9968

2.054

77.0

76.0

75.9

362
360

Fitnee value, K

358
356
354
352
350
348
0

50

100

150
Generation number, N

200

250

300

Experimental validation of the optima

Test section
Data acquisition system

DC power units, 10 Nos

Voltage = 0-12V, Current = 0-2 A

Wind tunnel

Checklist
Can we solve a similar problem ?
Deny a natural law. Can we solve it then ?
Try Fantasy
Use brainstorming / group discussion
Breakup the problem into essen7al func7onal
requirements
Give up for the 7me being and join in some fun !

Key road blocks and aids to creaHvity

Road block to crea7vity Fixity or

mental block
Aid to crea7vity- Analogy

Summary (1/3)
Inven7ve / Crea7ve phase of the design/research
process
Genera7on of ideas / concepts to solve a problem
Quality of concepts, major factor in deciding the
worth of the nal design

CreaHvity Novel combinaHon of elements already
in the mind!

Summary (2/3)

CreaHve process:
a. Soaking the mind with informa7on
b. Trying various possible combina7ons
c. Throwing up of the solu7on

CreaHvity
- Depends on communica7on between the
conscious and unconscious
- 3D Visualiza7on major plus
- Large library of ideas, another plus

Summary (3/3)

Improving creaHvity:

Games or puzzles
Hobbies (releasing imagina7on)
Reading short stories and biographies- provokes
imagina7on
Wri7ng
Experiencing the process

Ant Colony OpHmizaHon

A probabilis7c technique to solve
computa7onal problems.
Inspired by the foraging behavior of ants.
Well suited for combinatorial problems and mul7-
parameter op7miza7on.
Uses the concept of pheromone trail to iden7fy the path
that results in the best value for the objec7ve func7on.

IllustraHon of pheromone trail

Image Courtesy: Perretto and Lopes, Reconstruction of phylogenetic trees using

the ant colony optimization paradigm, Genetic and Molecular Research, 4, 2005,
pp 581-589

Ant Colony OpHmizaHon

GeneHc Algorithm
A search technique used to nd exact or
approximate solu7ons to op7miza7on problems.
An evolu7onary approach to op7miza7on.
Based on the processes of selec7on, crossover,
recombina7on and muta7on to arrive at an op7mal
solu7on.
Very useful in obtaining global op7mum in
complicated situa7ons.

Some of our recent research results with GA

The op7mal heat distribu7on in an array of chips for
a given total amount of heat to be dissipated.
Objec7ve: Minimize the maximum temperature
(ojen called the MINIMAX criterion)
Flow
out
Flow
out

PCB of
200mm 200mm 3mm

Line of
symmetry
5
Heat
sources

Y
X
Z

1
0

5
5

4
4

3
3

z
47.5
mm

15 mm

2
2
7.5 mm
1
1

Heat source of
15mm15mm6
mm
Flow
in

Approach
Use CFD to simulate temperature distribu7on in the geometry
Conduct parametric studies by changing q1..q15.
Construct a nueral network to replace 7me consuming CFD
calcula7ons.
Neural network output is max temp given any combina7on of
q1q15.
Combine neural network with an op7miza7on method (here
Gene7c Algorithms) to choose combina7on of q1..q15 that
minimizes the maximum temperature anywhere in the
geometry (Called HYBRID approach)

Optimum heat distribution among 15 heat sources (ANN plus GA)

Left Column

Middle Column

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Qi, W

Qi, W

Right Column

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Qi, W

Temperature, Ti
(0C)

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

Num

Expt

ANN

CFD

EXPT

1.0948

1.107

77.3

77.1

84.0

0.6659

0.640

77.0

77.7

78.3

1.0948

1.089

77.3

77.1

82.7

0.5879

0.592

73.5

73.3

75.1

0.5843

0.594

77.2

77.0

76.8

0.5879

0.584

73.5

73.3

72.9

1.0272

1.021

77.3

77.1

78.0

0.0229

0.024

70.4

70.2

64.2

1.0272

1.081

77.3

77.1

74.9

1.0342

1.035

77.1

76.7

72.7

0.6274

0.606

77.0

77.0

69.8

1.0342

1.010

77.1

76.7

70.5

1.9968

2.015

77.0

76.0

76.3

1.6177

1.586

77.4

76.4

71.1

1.9968

2.054

77.0

76.0

75.9

362
360

Fitnee value, K

358
356
354
352
350
348
0

50

100

150
Generation number, N

200

250

300

Experimental validation of the optima

Test section
Data acquisition system

DC power units, 10 Nos

Voltage = 0-12V, Current = 0-2 A

Wind tunnel

 Research Methodology

A breezy overview

Research methodology A quick summary

Let us now look at the larger picture of other
abributes of good research.

Good literature survey and documenta7on

Iden7ca7on of gaps in literature

Summarizing the gaps leading to aim and scope of
the inves7ga7on

Research Methodology- A quick summary

Experimental / Numerical methodology

Prepara7on of drawings/ nalizing materials

Using concepts like Design of experiments to arrive
at the number of experiments

In the case of a numerical inves7ga7on Key
decision To use canned sojware or write ones
own code.

Research methodology- A quick summary

Pay aben7on to errors and quan7fy uncertain7es in
measurements.
Perform convergence and grid independence
studies.
Valida7on with benchmarks
Carrying out a detailed parametric study

Research methodology A quick summary

Data reduc7on and analysis
Crea7ve plo\ng and interpreta7on of results
Look for generaliza7on of results
Dis7ll key counterintui7ve conclusions

Research Methodology A quick summary

Copying more than 50 words from any source in a
paper or thesis is plagiarism Say No to it
Journal Editors have access to an7-plagiarism
sojware like turn it in that can nd out if a
manuscript is copied from somewhere.
Be informed that Editors prepare a black list of
authors who are found copying!

My philosophy of research
Research is a serious ac7vity. Must be treated with
great respect
Research is a crea7ve pursuit
Research is a penance Tapas

Requires intense focus, energy, perseverance.

My philosophy of Research
Research is a life long pursuit
Success in research can be truly felt only we are in
the autumn of our lives or ajer we pass away
Ul7mate goal of any researcher is to get that
immortal status

Take home message

Problems cannot be solved by the same
level of thinking that created them
Albert Einstein

Thank You

balaji@iitm.ac.in