Exceptional Creativity in Science and Technology: Individuals, Institutions, and Innovations

In the evolution of science and technology, laws governing exceptional creativity and innovation have yet to be discovered. In his influential study The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the historian Thomas Kuhn noted that the final stage in a scientific breakthrough such as Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity—the most crucial step—was “inscrutable.” The same is still true half a century later.

Yet, there has been considerable progress in understanding many stages and facets of ex...