Imagination in science: An excursus from ancient debates to modern studies of complex materials to suggest a flipped classroom approach

After the Cultural Revolution in the seventeenth century, several poets believed that science was killing the beauty of art and poetry. So, imagination has been believed to be as opposite to scientific method. Fortunately, this point of view has been generally abandoned now, and the important role of imagination in science is finally well recognized. Particularly in the field of material science, the final the structural and dynamical properties of a system are usually unpredictable from their constituents, since they come usullay from the emerging behavior of assemblies constituted by a huge number of building blocks, so imagination is indicated as an essential tool for (i) thinking experiments, (ii) interpretating their results and (iii) preparing novel materials. Finally, recent research activity is reported to show some examples of how imagination can help in setting up smart procedures to prepare novel materials in modern science. Some directions are also suggested