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Previous statistical studies found that polymathic networks of vocational and avocational interest predominate among Nobel Prize winners, discriminating them from less-successful peers. Here we confirm qualitatively and phenomenologically that this multidisciplinarity is a considered creative strategy. Peers often recognize Nobel laureates as “Renaissance” intellects; Nobel Prize committees often award their prizes for transdisciplinarity and integration; Nobel laureates often describe their polymathy as conscious choice to optimize creative potential. That so many Nobel laureates should develop diverse interests and harness them to creative ends is, probably, the result of a confluence of factors. Laureates experience, on average, enhanced access to education; they train differently and more broadly than their peers; they retrain and extend themselves as serious amateurs; and they meld vocational and avocational sets of skills and knowledge into integrated networks of transdisciplinary enterprise. In effect, this combinatorial approach to learning and doing enables them to perceive unusual problems at the intersections of disciplines, to transfer ideas and techniques from one field to another, and/or to synthesize knowledge across domains. Specializing in breadth can be a path to innovation comparable to, and (at least in terms of Nobel Prizes) arguably better than, specialization alone.

Polymathy Among Nobel Laureates As a Creative Strategy— The Qualitative and Phenomenological Evidence