Vilken klockrenhet i dessa insikter som levererades i samtalet mellan Krista Tippet och Lisa Randall i denna podcast på On Being. 

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DR. RANDALL: Right. What I like to think of — the most interesting kind of creativity is sort of constrained creativity, where you have some rules. I mean, it’s not just true in science, it’s true when you make a movie. I have friends who make movies. You know, there’s certain formulas that you have to stick to at some level, but within that framework, can you make it interesting? Can you see how things fit together in more complex and surprising ways? And that’s where the creativity comes in, trying to figure out — you have these elements, but how can they be connected? Is there some link that we’re missing? And then once you have that, you have to be creative about figuring out, how will we know if this is true? What are the predictions that you would make that we wouldn’t be making otherwise? And how can we test them? So I definitely think there’s a lot of creativity. I mean, there’s certain kinds of physics where you’re just working things out, but there’s certain types of physicists who are thinking about new ideas a lot.

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah.

DR. RANDALL: And that’s what I like to do.

MS. TIPPETT: I was just thinking about a neuropsychologist I interviewed who’s studying creativity in the brain — and creativity as distinct from intelligence. And one of the things they measure — one of the measures of creativity is actually humor, because it is, in fact, about making unexpected connections. You know?

DR. RANDALL: I think that’s totally true.

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah.

DR. RANDALL: In fact, I have a movie reviewer friend who had actually talked about Robin Williams in this context.

MS. TIPPETT: Mm.

DR. RANDALL: And talked about the amazing connections he made and that was part of his humor, was this incredible wordplay.

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah.

DR. RANDALL: And I do find that a lot of kind of math-y people I know are really — enjoy wordplay a lot, too…

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah.

DR. RANDALL: …because it’s also these bizarre connections…

MS. TIPPETT: Yeah, kind of…

DR. RANDALL: …that you might not have anticipated.

MS. TIPPETT: …making those unexpected connections, and then, you know, I think about leaning into them with joy. Leaning into them …

DR. RANDALL: And I’m certainly guilty of that, too.

MS. TIPPETT: I know. Actually I think we’re going to get…

DR. RANDALL: I get accused of making nerdy jokes…

MS. TIPPETT: …to that in a little while.

DR. RANDALL: …a lot. Yeah.

Åh – detta sätter ord och självklarheter på en massa tankar och saker i mig. Jag ser att det är i detta mönster, i dessa processer som jag bara älskar när jag får dessa oväntade och klarsynta kopplingar. Kopplingar som ibland får mig att asgarva. Som ibland får mig att undra varför ingen annan hänger med. Som ibland är så självklara i sin enkelhet och samtidigt så starka och enkla.

Jag älskar min kreativitet och min humor och att jag har ett behov av att leka och vara lekfull – det är en nyckel till de båda. Kreativiteten och humorn.