Thinking Like Einstein - Hardcover

West, Thomas G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1591022517 ISBN 13: 9781591022510

Publisher: Prometheus, 2004

Synopsis

Albert Einstein once said that all of his most important and productive thinking was done by playing with images in his imagination. Only in a secondary stage did he translate - with great effort, he says - these images into the language of words and mathematics that could be understood by others.According to Thomas G. West, 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 his awarding-winning book, In the Mind's Eye, West discussed the connections between highly talented, visually oriented persons like Einstein and certain 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 inexpensive and powerful computers, we are 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.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 is permitting a return to our visual roots with a new balance between hemispheres and ways of thinking - presenting new opportunities for problem solving and big picture thinking. Thus, he argues that 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 thought and action.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas G. West is the author of In the Mind's Eye and a writer, lecturer and consultant based in Washington, DC. In connection with In the Mind’s Eye, he has been invited to provide over 200 presentations, interviews and documentary segments for computer, business, education, art, design, scientific and medical groups in the U.S. and fourteen countries overseas.

From the Inside Flap

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 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.

Reviews

With its arguments that visuospatial abilities and difficulties with language often go hand in hand and that the former often outweigh the latter, West’s 1991 book, In the Mind’s Eye, established him as a hero among dyslexics. In the wake of the book’s success, he was asked to write a column on the relationship between what he calls "visual thinking" and the exploding world of visual technology for the magazine Computer Graphics. Twenty-three of these slight columns, organized by content but barely updated or expanded, are collected in this book. West repeatedly presents an unsupported dichotomy between visual and verbal intelligence, with visual thinkers being creative, imaginative, big-picture thinkers who are under appreciated by the mainstream verbal culture that relishes specialization of knowledge. Emerging graphics and data manipulation technologies will allow those visual thinkers to claim the new cultural and intellectual high ground, he says. West argues that this revolution is about to occur but, unfortunately, he never thoroughly describes what visual intelligence is, nor does he explain exactly what is so transformative about the visual technologies he reports on. The short length of his columns also doesn’t allow for the development of his potentially fascinating arguments, such as the idea that "the newest computer data visualization technologies draw on some of our oldest neurological resources." Instead, the columns are often topical reviews of books, news articles or conference presentations related to his overarching and oft-repeated thesis, and philosophically intriguing points are left to the reader as brief musings based on secondary sources. West’s original columns were largely preaching to the chorus; this volume will be satisfying to fans of his earlier work, but the lack of description and sustained argument will make this book ultimately frustrating to both casual and skeptical readers.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 1591022517
• ISBN 13: 9781591022510
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 222