Science is a product of imagination. Of guided imagination. Because science – like art – does not imitate nature. It transcends it. It does not consist simply of deducing theories from collected data. The scientific process always starts with the invention of a possible world. Imagination in science is guided by logic, by the rules of mathematics or physics, critical thinking and experimentation.
Let’s bear in mind that imagination is the creative faculty of the mind to form and connect images. Scientific innovation, more often than not, stems from an analogy, a metaphor or mental association. Evoking images, connecting ideas, experimenting solutions and confronting the possible with the real are the pillars of disruptive and sustainable scientific innovation. This is also the source of the innovative power of virtual worlds: they are where imagination and action meet.
