Comparison of Creative Techniques: Feynman, Branson and Mandlebrot

1. Introduction This report presents a study of the creative techniques of Richard Feynman, Richard Branson and Benoit Mandelbrot. The creative techniques that will be outlined are visualisation, art, breaking the rules of school, brainstorming, receptivity to ideas, throwing paperballs at nasyayers, and dreaming. Included in the report is a discussion relationship of the learning styles of Feynman, Branson and Mandelbrot with relation to the creative techniques each have used. There is a strong commonality of eccentricity amongst all three subjects in their personal or their professional lives. Each subject is considered to be a laterally thinker, maverick and creative genius in their chosen fields, willing to push the past the boundaries in an audacious and adventurous manner into the unknown.

1.1 Richard Feynman Richard Feynman (1918 –1988) was an American scientist, Nobel Laureate, and Professor of Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He made significant scientific contributions in the areas of physics, chemistry, biology and teaching. Feynman was seconded to work on several projects of national importance. During WW II, he was involved in the mission to develop the first atomic bomb, code named “The Manhattan Project”. As part of the team investigating the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion, Feynman demonstrated the cause of the tragedy as the failure of a rubber O–ring to provide an adequate seal at low temperatures. In addition Feynman wrote a scathing report criticising NASA management for their inadequate focus on realistic safety estimates and their blatant disregard of recommendations from NASA engineers. Feynman’s Nobel Prize was in recognition of his most notable contribution to physics in the area of quantum electrodynamics (Feynman, 2005). Prolific in other fields, Feynman was storyteller, artist, musician and safecracker.

1.2 Richard Branson Richard Branson (born 1950), a dyslexic high school drop out, and British

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