The three years of solitary work at Montpellier had not been wasted in the least: that intellectual isolation was what had allowed him to access the cognitive space where new ideas arise. He had made himself at home there.

Here is Asimov again, this time on the permissive aspects of creativity: My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it …The presence of others can only inhibit this pr

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