Archimedes' Bathtub: The Art and Logic of Breakthrough Thinking - Hardcover

Perkins, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393047954 ISBN 13: 9780393047950

Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc, 2000

Synopsis

Drawing on a rich knowledge of artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology, this work offers a uniquely integrative theory of how intellectual breakthroughs occur. 12,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

David Perkins codirects the think tank "Project Zero" at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and has authored books on mind, intelligence, creativity, and learning.

From Publishers Weekly:

The slogan of a prominent ad campaign notwithstanding, creative problem solving requires more than just the ability to "think different." Indeed, argues Perkins, codirector of the Project Zero think tank at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, breakthrough thinking "reflects not unusual things certain minds do but unusual structures certain problems have." Perkins likens these structures to the terrain of the Klondike gold fields, where a few prospectors found wealth but most failed. Unlike the "landscape of reasonable possibility space," in which thinkers can follow clues in logical order, Klondike problems present few discernable clues at the outset and offer many traps and detours in which thinkers can get stuck. Successful navigation of Klondike problems requires a store of active knowledge, the readiness to recognize useful patterns and the ability to break "mental sets," or automatic patterns of assumptions. Perkins's analysis of Klondike space and psychology, which he illustrates with puzzles, jokes, games and problems, is readable, entertaining and highly informative. However, his attempt to show Klondike thinking in computers and in evolution, though stimulating, is less fully developed. Though most of the book appears to be aimed at general readers, a few sections presuppose familiarity with such specialized fields as relativity and systems theory. But even readers who may not fully grasp how Klondike problems relate to "self-organizing criticality" will be able to enjoy this absorbing introduction to cognitive theory. Agent, Ed Barber, Sanford J. Greenberger Associates. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0393047954
• ISBN 13: 9780393047950
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288