The 2010 Nobel Physics co-laureate Andre Geim, of University of Manchester
Imagine you wanted to create a material the world had never before seen, a "wonder material" historically thought to be only theoretically possible. This material would be the thinnest material in the universe (only one atom thick) and the strongest ever measured. It would be electrically and thermally conductive but also optically transparent and impermeable to gases.
Knowing that some of the world's smartest minds have been unsuccessful in discovering such material, would you follow in your predecessors' intellectual footsteps; would you mechanically traipse a well-trodden path, blinkered and unwavering? Or would you take the path less traveled, thinking divergently, jumping across topics in search of previously undiscovered connections?
Fortunately, we know the best approach. There is such a wonder material; it's called graphene. And the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who led its discovery, Sir Andre Geim, is regarded as one of the more creative minds in physics.
Dr. Geim, Regius Professor and Royal Society Research Professor at The University of Manchester, didn't just discover graphene, the one-atom-thick wonder material derived from graphite, but also its highly unusual properties and, perhaps more importantly, a whole class of similar materials.
As he shared with me in a recent conversation, "For the whole of human history, we only had materials that were bulk materials with width, thickness, lengths. There were no materials known to the human race, which were one atom or one molecule thick. Now we have graphene, but it's not alone. There is a whole class of thousands of similar materials that bring us to an age of new so-called two-dimensional materials. We didn't even know that they existed 20 years ago, and now they're bringing us new physics, new science, and benefits to industry and humanity in general."
But this begs the question, how did Dr. Geim make this discovery when others hadn't or couldn't? Was it mere luck or something more? In Dr. Geim's case, a good deal of his success (and his ability to attract luck) stems from lateral thinking. "Because of my rather diverse background and being in different scientific environments, I like to jump from subject to subject," he shared with me. "When you do such jumps, you don't get stuck on one track of thinking. And you're able to use the knowledge from other areas; it starts to come naturally. And this background knowledge sometimes makes the whole difference."
In addition to his diverse experiences and subject-jumping, Dr. Geim hosts Friday night experiments. As he describes them, "The Friday sessions refer to something that you're not paid for and not supposed to do during your professional life. Curiosity-driven research. Something random, simple, maybe a bit weird—even ridiculous."
During one such session, while thinking about the little understood electronic properties of graphite, he instructed his doctoral student to make thin graphite films by polishing a tablet of pyrolytic graphite. After several months, what resulted was a tiny speck of graphite that was far too thick. While teasing his student "about polishing a mountain to get one grain of sand," a colleague walked over with a piece of Scotch Tape with graphite flakes attached. It's a common lab technique to prepare graphite by using tape to remove a top layer and then, of course, throw away that piece of tape. As Dr. Geim explained to me, "These flakes of graphite on Scotch Tape were one man's garbage but another man's gold." While not quite thin enough initially, the flakes on the tape led to a bit more tweaking and eventually major breakthroughs.
Was their luck involved in getting that Scotch Tape with flakes? Of course, but Dr. Geim attracted that luck. Far too many people sit passively waiting for luck to randomly choose them. But Dr. Geim's approach involves relentless curiosity and a willingness to jump across subjects and explore new areas, even ones that might not initially seem immediately relevant.
"The knowledge which seemed irrelevant plays a critical role in discovery," Dr. Geim shared with me. "You have to enrich yourself, to improve your chances to find something new and interesting that other people didn't find before. If you are moving along a straight line, there is usually a large community of people doing the same thing. It's like trying to find a small patch of grass within a tribe of elephants. If you jump like a frog from subject to subject, you have the chance to land on top of a patch of grass which no one has yet stepped on."
These Friday night experiments don't always lead to Nobel Prizes; sometimes, they lead to an Ig Nobel Prize. Described as honoring achievements "that make people laugh, then think," the Ig Nobel Prize celebrates the unusual. Dr. Geim won that prize for his curiosity-driven night-time experimentation with powerful electromagnets to levitate water, a frog, and a pet hamster (he named the hamster as co-author of the resulting paper). While some of his colleagues urged him to decline the award, perhaps fearing it demeaned the seriousness of his research, his curiosity and experimentation drive his success, so both the Nobel and Ig Nobel Prizes seemed perfectly appropriate.
Dr. Geim's career advice for his doctoral students provides wisdom that would benefit any innovator. "Sometimes Ph.D. students come to me wanting to know the title of their thesis. I can't predict what will happen in three months, and you want me to predict what happens in four years? You start with doing this one thing, and, hopefully, along the way, within a few months, you find something new. Too many people move from scientific cradle to scientific coffin without deviation." Given Dr. Geim’s advice, it’s not surprising that the most innovative personalities are often described as taking risks, challenging conventions, and pursuing audacious goals.
