Creativity is the ability to generate innovative ideas and manifest them from thought into reality. The process involves original thinking and then producing. The process of creation was historically reserved for deities creating "from nothing" in Creationism and other creation myths. Over time, the term creativity came to include human

innovation, especially in art and science and led to the emergence of the creative class. Etymology Creativity comes from the Latin term creo "to create, make". The ways in which societies have perceived the concept of creativity have changed throughout history, as has the term itself. Originally in the Christian period: "creatio" came to designate God's act of Ex nihilo, "creation from nothing." "Creatio" thus had a different meaning than "facere" ("to make") and did not apply to human functions. The ancient view that art is not a domain of creativity persisted in this period

History of the term and the concept Main article: History of the concept of creativity A shift occurred in modern times. Renaissance men had a sense of their own independence, freedom and creativity, and sought to give voice to this sense. The first to actually apply the word "creativity" was the Polish poet Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski, who applied it exclusively to poetry. For over a century and a half, the idea of human creativity met with resistance, due to the fact that the term "creation" was reserved for creation "from nothing." Baltasar Gracián (1601–58) would only venture to write: "Art is the completion of nature, as if it were a second Creator..."[2] The ancient Greek concept of art (in Greek, t????, téchne—the root of "technique" and "technology"), with the exception of poetry, involved not freedom of action but subjection to rules. In Rome, this Greek concept was partly shaken, and visual artists were viewed as sharing, with poets, imagination and inspiration.[3] Although neither the Greeks nor the Romans had a word that directly corresponded to the word "creativity," their art, architecture, music, inventions and discoveries provide numerous examples of what today would be described as creative works. The Greek scientist of Syracuse, Archimedes experienced the creative moment in his Eureka experience, finding the answer to a problem he had been wrestling with for a long time. At the time, the concept of "genius" probably came closest to describing the creative talents that brought forth such works.[4] By the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment, the concept of creativity was appearing more often in art theory, and was linked with the concept of imagination.[1] The Western view of creativity can be contrasted with the Eastern view. For Hindus, Confucianists, Taoists and Buddhists, creation was at most a kind of discovery or mimicry, and the idea of creation "from nothing" had no place in these philosophies and religions.[4] In the West, by the 19th century, not only had art come to be regarded as creativity, but it alone was so regarded. When later, at the turn of the 20th century, there began to be discussion of creativity in the sciences (e.g., Jan Lukasiewicz, 1878–1956) and in nature (e.g., Henri Bergson), this was generally taken as the transference, to the sciences, of concepts that were proper to art.[1]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading mathematicians and scientists such as Hermann von Helmholtz (1896) and Henri Poincaré (1908) began to reflect on and publicly discuss their creative processes, and these insights were built on in early accounts of the creative process by pioneering theorists such as Graham Wallas (1926) and Max Wertheimer (1945). However,the formal starting point to the scientific study of creativity, from the standpoint of orthodox psychological literature, is generally considered to have been J.P. Guilford's 1950 address to the American Psychological Association, which helped popularize the topic[5] and focus attention on a scientific approach to conceptualizing creativity and measuring it psychometrically. In parallel with these developments, other investigators have taken a more pragmatic approach, teaching practical creativity techniques. Three of the best-known are: * Alex Osborn's "brainstorming" (1950s to present), * Genrikh Altshuller's Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ, 1950s to present), * and Edward de Bono's "lateral thinking" (1960s to present).

Creative thought
Creative thought is a mental process involving creative problem solving and the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness. Although intuitively a simple phenomenon, it is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioral psychology, social psychology, psychometrics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, aesthetics, history, economics, design research, business, and management, among others. The studies have covered everyday creativity, exceptional creativity and even artificial creativity. Unlike many phenomena in science, there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity. And unlike many phenomena in psychology, there is no standardized measurement technique. Creativity has been attributed variously to divine intervention, cognitive processes, the social environment, personality traits, and chance ("accident", "serendipity"). It has been associated with genius, mental illness, humor and REM sleep.[6] Some say it is a trait we are born with; others say it can be taught with the application of simple techniques. Creativity has also been viewed as a beneficence of a muse or muses. Although popularly associated with art and literature, it is also an essential part of innovation and invention and is important in professions such as business, economics, architecture, industrial design, graphic design, advertising, game design, mathematics, music, science and engineering, and teaching. Despite, or perhaps because of, the ambiguity and multi-dimensional nature of creativity, entire industries have been spawned from the pursuit of creative ideas and the development of creativity techniques. Leonardo da Vinci is well known for his creative works. Creativity has been associated with right or forehead brain activity or even specifically with lateral thinking. Some students of creativity have emphasized an element of chance in the creative process. Linus Pauling, asked at a public lecture how one creates scientific theories, replied that one must endeavor to come up with many ideas, then discard the useless ones. Another adequate definition of creativity, according to Otto Rank, is that it is an "assumptions-breaking process." Creative ideas are often generated when one discards preconceived assumptions and attempts a new approach or method that might seem to others unthinkable.