The prize-winning skill that many Nobel laureates share

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Relate to 'Renaissance man' like da Vinci, who is not really a scientist, but also a skilled artist (think Mona Lisa and The Last Supper). A modern day equivalent can be Steve Jobs, who had one foot in tech and another in calligraphy, the latter giving rise to the beautiful fonts we take for granted in Apple products today....

What has lace-making got to do with medicine? The combination offers a clue to the sort of boundary-breaking researchers who end up Nobel winners.

likely to be what we call "creative polymaths". That is, they purposely integrate formal and informal expertise from widely varied disciplines to yield new and useful ideas and practices.

Many of these laureates discover problems by looking at topics in new ways, or they solve them by transferring skills, techniques and materials from one field to another. ...n one notable example, Dr Alexis Carrel won his Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1912 by adapting lace-making and embroidery techniques to transplant surgery.

I can always view my hobbies as part of my research."

the vast majority of laureates have or had formal - and often also informal - education in more than one discipline, developed intensive and extensive hobbies and changed fields....they have intentionally sought out useful connections among their diverse activities as a formal strategy for stimulating creativity.

Our analysis finds that scientists who win a Nobel Prize are about nine times more likely to have training in crafts such as wood- and metal-working or fine arts than the typical scientist.

In sharp contrast to typical professionals who view their hobbies as irrelevant or even detrimental to their work, Nobel laureates perceive their varied interests and hobbies as important stimulants.

having a persistent, intellectually challenging hobby - such as musical performance, acting, visual art exhibition, competitive chess or computer programming - is a better predictor of career success in any field than are grades, standardised test scores or IQ.

Link also the the arts, esp how the arts complement the sciences, esp how the radically different perspective it affords the sciences can be fruitful....

Qns: 
1. Education should only be concerned with what is useful in life. Discuss. (Cam. 2013)
2. Consider the value of hobbies.