The stage play “A Disappearing Number,” conceived by Simon McBurney, focuses on the relationship between the mathematicians Srinivasa Ramanujan and G. H. Hardy. Ramanujan is famous for producing thousands of original results and pioneering new ideas in intricate areas of mathematics. His accomplishments are especially notable because he grew up at the turn of the 20th century in the region of southern India that is now Tamil Nadu. His prodigious talent seemingly arose from nowhere — that is, it developed in an environment disconnected from the university structures that existed in Europe and other parts of the world.

After attending a showing at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2014, I debriefed with a mathematician about the play and its two main characters. He spoke about the differences between the largely self-taught Ramanujan and Hardy, the latter of whom was British and formally educated at the University of Cambridge. Ramanujan, he described, worked through huge numbers of problems with endless vigor and through repetition; Hardy, on the other hand, was more formal in his approach.

I didn’t notice this difference, and I found his assessment curious. It was one of the first times that I had heard anyone describe a stylistic difference between scientists in that manner. We were not discussing differences in a methodological approach, area of expertise, or writing style. Rather, we were discussing how two scientists who collaborated had an identifiable style with regards to how they carried out their work.

Mathematics is an important space to consider this idea, as many of us believe that progress in this realm is based on objective descriptions of natural phenomena. For example, the beauty of calculus is that it outlines a fundamental set of principles that describes the dynamics of systems of many kinds: space travel, outbreaks, even zombie apocalypses.

But my conversation about Ramanujan helped me see that even the manner in which one proves theorems can involve personal quirks. And it made me wonder why I had never had a conversation about scientific style, was never taught to establish one or that styles were even a welcome part of my professional identity. But with Ramanujan in mind, I now see what can be described as stylistic differences in many subfields.

In my own work, I noticed this during a collaborative modeling project conceived as an educational exercise for trainees. It compared the process of plant invasion to infectious disease emergence. The manuscript was written over the course of three years, with computational scientists of various stripes contributing to different parts of the study. Some of the authors used more classical, applied mathematical approaches, reconciling features of the systems being explored (in plant ecology and epidemiology) with analytic descriptions. Others were less tethered to this staid structure. And a few were much more interested in how to frame the study in terms of modern questions in ecology or epidemiology. As the one responsible for supervising and stewarding the study, I was charged with synthesizing the computational approaches, the biological questions, and the writing so that the manuscript read as a coherent story. The work was eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal.

There is a thin line between style and methodological approach. For example, I’m not sure I’d characterize the long debate between Bayesians and frequentists — two schools of statisticians — as stylistic. Rather, I think those differences resemble the stuff of standard idea factions, whereby each are driven by a different fundamental picture of the world and conducts work with it in mind. Similarly, I don’t think that generic debates between theoreticians or empiricists qualify as stylistic differences. The gaps here feel more hardwired into the formalisms of the field.

Style, as I see it, is much more idiosyncratic and manifests in scientists who may practice in the same field and utilize similar methods, but who nonetheless differ in the way they conduct and produce their work.

It made me wonder why I had never had a conversation about scientific style, was never taught to establish one or that styles were even a welcome part of my professional identity.

For example, while studying synthetic organic chemistry as an undergraduate, I observed that there are chemists who approach building large, complicated molecules by using incremental steps and well-known chemistry. Others take the much more aggressive route, making higher risk moves in the hope of both skipping synthesis steps and discovering new chemistry. This is another manifestation of style: Both scientists are synthetic chemists. Both use the same glassware and instrumentation. But they differ, nonetheless.

An argument can be made that individual signatures in science might be the source of problems and that we could benefit from more universality in approach. For example, we might trace the replicability crisis to the fact that our methods and practices are too specific from experiment to experiment. Maybe science needs less style, and not more.

To this, I’d only respond that personal style can co-exist with an established structure. Poetry can have its technical constraints, from iambic pentameter to the syllabic structure of haiku. And yet, there are seemingly infinite degrees of freedom for creativity within these forms. In chess, creativity within a strict rule set is specifically what makes it such a thrilling game.

Something similar can be said for science. If we wanted to remove the subjectivities and biases that can make it inefficient and unmeritocratic, the solution is not to strongarm homogenization.

I believe that style is more than the random by-product of different people’s participation in a craft or profession. It is a positive feature of science that facilitates different routes to solving problems, and with this comes innovative approaches and discovery. Consequently, we should promote individuality in our scientific excursions. We can embrace differences in our approaches while still promoting rigor and clarity.

What are other examples of where scientific style might be obvious if we were looking for it?

We all publish manuscripts, but the manner that we write them is different. We state our question (and hypothesis, if there is one), clearly describe our analyses, and visualize our data (where possible). Yet the format in which we communicate our findings varies greatly. Some publish in bunches, churning out stories by the dozens, like a DJ mixtape. Others treat manuscripts like paintings: The scientist stews over each one, adding single strokes one at a time.

If we wanted to remove the subjectivities and biases that can make science inefficient and unmeritocratic, the solution is not to strongarm homogenization.

When it comes to building a research group, some prefer armies full of specialists: a crystallographer section of the lab; a bioinformatics corner; a niche for statisticians. Others create agile, units of thinkers who may specialize in a method, but can pivot to a new topic on a dime.

None of the models above are “right” or “wrong.” Scientists can succeed with any of them. And they are but a sample of many ways that our peculiarities manifest in the way that we can conduct our science.

The current political moment has brought a lack of connection between scientists and the public into the limelight. One way to humanize science is to show the world that its practitioners are much more than data-making automatons. We are people with tendencies and proclivities that can affect our science in positive ways. And so I encourage us to notice and name the style in scientific work. Because many of us are truly creatives who function like artists more than we acknowledge or admit.