Asking Good Questions

By Shlomo Maital

     The late Nobel Laureate in Physics, Isador Rabi, ascribed his success to his mother.  Most moms ask you, what did you learn in school today?  he recounted.  Rabi’s mom asked him, Izzie, what good questions did you ask in school today?

     A study by three Technion researchers led by Prof. Yoed Kenett formally explored the link between framing questions and creativity.[1]  They note: “Question asking has been a critical tool for teaching and learning since the time of Socrates and is important in the creative problem-solving process. Yet, its role in creativity has insofar not been thoroughly explored. The current study assessed the role of question asking in the creative process.”

     They find what startup entrepreneurs know well:  Those who ask complex, unusual, complex questions tend to be more creative than others.  Complex questions are a predictor of high creativity.  

       Rabi, who asked great questions, was part of a team at MIT that helped to develop a key component of radar, in WWII – a crucial breakthrough.  His research on magnetic resonance (excitation of particles like atomic nuclei or electrons in a magnetic field) led to development of MRI, which uses a magnetic field and computer-generated radio waves that excite atoms in the body, to create detailed images of the organs and tissues of the body.

     Note that complex does not necessarily mean complicated or long.  A complex question can be one nobody else asks.  Here is the question physicist Raymond Damadian asked, that ultimately led to the MRI:  “Can the magnetic properties of the body’s atomic nuclei [pioneered by Rabi] be used to create a diagnostic tool for medical imaging?”   Nobody else dreamed of linking magnetic resonance with medical imaging.

      Later in his life, Rabi had cancer.  In his last days, his doctors examined him using MRI, a technology arising from his ground-breaking research.   The machine happened to have a reflective inner surface, and he remarked: “I saw myself in that machine… I never thought my work would come to this.”

[1]  Tuval Raz, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Yoed N. Kenett, “The Role of Asking More Complex Questions in Creative Thinking.”  Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 2021.