For The New York Times, Siobhan Roberts talked to mathematician and Fields Medal winner Alessio Figalli, who is known for his work in optimal transport. On creativity:
Suppose you’re doing very good research in an area; your optimization scheme would have you stay there. But it’s better to take risks. Failure and frustration are key. Big breakthroughs, big changes, always come because at some moment you are taking yourself out of your comfort zone, and this will never be an optimization process. Optimizing everything results in missing opportunities sometimes. I think it’s important to really value and be careful with what you optimize.
