In this blog post, I’ll explore the importance of creative thinking and thinking tools for engineering students based on my reading of ‘The Birth of an Idea’.
While there are many qualities engineering students must possess when they graduate and enter the workforce as engineers, the two most important are professional knowledge and creativity. In other words, the educational goal of engineering schools is to cultivate both professional knowledge and creativity in engineering students. Based on my experience as a third-year engineering student, while there may be individual differences, I believe that university education allows students to acquire a certain level of professional knowledge. This is because engineering students learn a great deal of specialized knowledge—which may be somewhat unfamiliar to non-majors—through their major courses. However, are we truly cultivating creativity through our university education? I don’t think so. This is because I often feel that opportunities for creative thinking are diminishing as we focus on acquiring specialized knowledge in our major courses. So, what methods are available to foster creativity? Of course, one approach would be to practice creative thinking frequently in daily life. However, this method feels somewhat vague. If methods for creative thinking were systematically organized, it would be a great help in cultivating creativity. “The Birth of Thought,” written by the Root-Bernstein couple, is a highly valuable book in that it systematically classifies and explains methods for creative thinking using various “thinking tools.”
In its introduction, the book highlights the importance of creative thinking by introducing great figures from various fields who led their eras through creative thinking. In the main body, the book provides detailed explanations of the 13 thinking tools that serve as the means of creative thinking: observation, visualization, abstraction, pattern recognition, pattern formation, analogy, thinking with the body, empathy, dimensional thinking, modeling, play, transformation, and integration. While introducing each thinking tool, the book presents abundant examples of how great figures from various fields who demonstrated creative thinking utilized them. When dealing with an abstract and somewhat unfamiliar topic like “creative thinking,” readers might easily feel confused or bored; however, the author effectively conveys his ideas through diverse examples of famous figures. Furthermore, in the conclusion, he summarizes creative thinking based on the 13 thinking tools explained earlier and goes on to emphasize the importance of the ability to integrate various fields through creative thinking.
Creative thinking has long been emphasized as a core competency that future leaders must possess. Consequently, many books on creative thinking have been published in addition to ‘The Birth of Thought’. So, what are the strengths of ‘The Birth of Thought’ compared to other books on creativity?
First, this book presents a clear outline from the very beginning and systematically organizes its content by topic. ‘The Birth of Thought’ is a voluminous book spanning approximately 500 pages. While its thickness might seem daunting to readers, the content is divided into an introduction, a main body covering the 13 thinking tools, and a conclusion—a structure that not only reduces the burden of reading but also helps readers understand the book’s overall framework before they even begin. In particular, with longer books, readers may miss the core message the author intends to convey if they fail to grasp the overall framework and outline; this book effectively overcomes this drawback through its systematic structure.
The second strength of this book is its case-study-based approach to developing arguments. As mentioned earlier, the author presents examples of creative thinking demonstrated by great figures from various fields while unfolding his logic. Although this book deals with the intangible and abstract topic of creative thinking, its rich examples not only spark the reader’s interest but also fully support the author’s arguments.
Third, this book encourages active reader participation. For example, it prompts readers to engage directly in the thought process by showing illustrations and asking what comes to mind, or by presenting various geometric shapes and asking if they can visualize them in three dimensions.
It also fosters indirect engagement by presenting examples such as “Einstein thought this way in such a situation,” prompting readers to consider how they themselves would have thought. Thanks to this approach, ‘The Birth of Thought’ was able to effectively convey its vast content. Another strength of the book is its concise writing style and minimal use of technical jargon, making the content accessible. In this way, ‘The Birth of Thought’ effectively conveys the author’s ideas on creative thinking to readers through its structure and narrative approach.
Building on these strengths, ‘The Birth of Thought’ systematically explains how to engage in creative thinking. As mentioned earlier, the creative thinking discussed in this book spans a wide range of fields, including not only engineering but also literature, mathematics, science, music, and art. After discussing creative thinking across various fields, the conclusion emphasizes the importance of holistic, integrated education that fuses multiple disciplines. While the author examines creative thinking—which is universally applicable across all fields—for the purpose of holistic, integrated education, I would like to focus specifically on creative thinking for engineering students. I do not believe that the 13 thinking tools introduced in this book are utilized with equal emphasis across all fields. Depending on the characteristics of a field, certain thinking tools may be used very frequently, while others may be used relatively less often. Therefore, I examined which of the 13 thinking tools introduced by the author should be particularly emphasized for engineering students.
“Observation,” the first thinking tool introduced, is one that many people might consider an essential skill for engineering students as well. Of course, observation is not a thinking tool that is entirely unnecessary for engineering students. However, I believe it is a skill that is relatively more important for scientists than for engineering students. The role of a scientist is to observe and analyze natural phenomena to uncover their underlying principles. In contrast, the role of an engineering student is to create technologies and tools that make society more convenient and prosperous by applying the principles of natural phenomena uncovered by scientists. Of course, as the author explains, observation is the starting point of all creative thinking, so it is a necessary skill for engineering students as well. However, compared to other thinking tools, I believe its relative importance is slightly lower.
The second and third thinking tools—“visualization” and “abstraction”—are essential for engineering students. Engineering students cannot actually perform every experiment they wish to conduct. This is because some experiments may be excessively costly, require a long time, or be difficult to carry out in real-world environments. In such cases, the ability to visualize the experimental process in one’s mind and predict the results is necessary. Furthermore, engineers must accurately understand the principles of natural phenomena in order to apply them to their research. Since natural phenomena are generally far more complex than one might think, the ability to select only the necessary elements, simplify them, and grasp the core is crucial. This is precisely the thinking tool known as “abstraction.”
“Pattern recognition” and “pattern formation” can be useful thinking tools for understanding natural phenomena that appear complex and disordered. However, overreliance on these patterns can actually limit creative thinking. This is because while natural phenomena exhibit certain regularities, they also contain exceptions and complexities. If one focuses too much on patterns alone, they may fail to discover the characteristics of new natural phenomena that fall outside existing frameworks, which could actually narrow the possibilities for creative thinking available to engineering students.
I believe that “thinking with the body” and “empathy” are thinking tools of relatively low importance for engineering students. This is because, in the field of engineering, the ability to apply new technologies based on objective analysis and accurate judgment is more important than emotions or expression. These thinking tools play a greater role in fields where sensibility and expression are crucial—such as the arts—rather than in engineering.
Furthermore, “dimensional thinking” is an essential thinking tool for engineering students. They must design and develop products and technologies that actually function in the real world. Reality fundamentally unfolds in three-dimensional space, and depending on the field of research, thinking in higher dimensions—including time—may also be required. Therefore, even if an engineering student simplifies a problem and approaches it one-dimensionally, they must ultimately be able to solve it based on spatial thinking in three or more dimensions. For this reason, dimensional thinking is a crucial skill for engineering students.
Furthermore, “transformation” and “integration” are essential thinking tools in modern engineering, which requires the convergence of multiple disciplines. Today, engineering research is becoming increasingly complex, and there is a growing number of problems that cannot be solved by a single discipline alone. For example, suppose we are developing a micro-medical robot for use inside the human body. In that case, knowledge from various fields is required, including biotechnological thinking to understand the internal environment of the human body, mechanical engineering thinking to design the robot’s structure and operating principles, and materials engineering thinking to develop materials that will not corrode or be damaged even in the body’s chemical environment. As such, most research today is conducted through collaboration among experts from multiple fields. Therefore, the ability to connect different fields through transformative thinking and to fuse knowledge from various disciplines through integrative thinking is of paramount importance.
In this way, we have examined the 13 thinking tools introduced in ‘The Birth of Thought’ one by one from the perspective of the engineering field. Of course, this evaluation may vary depending on how one understands the field of engineering, and it may differ somewhat from the author’s original intent, which emphasized holistic, integrated education. Nevertheless, I believe that attempting to apply the broad spectrum of creative thinking covered in ‘The Birth of Thought’ to a specific field is also highly meaningful. While integrating all fields is important, I believe that first considering creative thinking methods tailored to the characteristics of each specific field can be of more practical help to professionals in those fields. This is because creative thinking must first be possible within one’s own field before convergence with other fields can be achieved through adaptation and integration.
Through this book, I was able to gain a more systematic understanding of creative thinking, which had previously felt merely abstract. It also allowed me to deeply reflect on the significance of creative thinking within the specific field of engineering. I believe that not only engineers but also professionals in other fields can use this book to explore creative thinking tailored to the characteristics of their own disciplines. By awakening the need for such reflection and laying the groundwork for it, ‘The Birth of Thought’ is, in my view, an extremely valuable book that helps people take a step closer to creative thinking.
