I am waiting for an invitation.
At least will be able to escape Jim and Jai
excerpt independent.co.uk
The IAS is as good as it gets in the brow-puckering business, and
their free-range thinking runs far and wide, from galaxy dynamics,
bioethics and terrorism to art history, the evolution of language and
Byzantine theology. However, taking a break from high-mindedness, a
couple of astrophysicists did once apply themselves to trying to
develop a roulette system that would beat the casinos in nearby
Atlantic City.
"There's a myth that people come here and go to sleep but I don't see
that in any of my colleagues," says Professor Walzer, who by eight
every morning is at his desk and immersed in political theory, moral
philosophy and interests that run from the welfare state to just and
unjust war (he supported the war in Afghanistan but is opposed to the
invasion of Iraq and the pre-emptive doctrine).
Members of the faculty tend to work in monkish seclusion and they
generate some mystery. The institute had a brief pop culture moment as
the backdrop for Walter Matthau, Tim Robbins and Meg Ryan in the movie
IQ ("All these great figures, they turn into bobbysoxers," sniffed the
anthropologist Clifford Geertz of his star-struck colleagues). But,
beyond a vague mythology about a gang of geniuses ruminating on life's
conundrums somewhere out in the woods, even people who have lived in
Princeton all their lives cannot tell you very much about the commune
of distinguished thinkers on Einstein Drive.
The relativity theory, hailed as the greatest achievement of a single
human mind, made Einstein a global celebrity. Few understood what he
was talking about but it didn't matter. They knew it was important and
he looked so right. With the mad hair, the soup-strainer moustache,
the accent, the pipe and his engaging eccentricity - he refused to
wear socks, even on the day he was sworn in as a US citizen - he was a
cuddly caricature of the crazy genius.
Upholding the image of the eccentric scientist, he was once involved
in trying to build a spaceship for the US Air Force that was powered
by H-bombs - it would set off successive thermonuclear explosions in
its wake and ride the shock waves through the cosmos. "This is not
nuts, this is supernuts," said the mathematician Richard Courant, an
expert on shock waves, after watching a model of the ship collapse on
its launch pad. Eventually it did work in small-scale trials but the
project was finally abandoned.
But critics of the institute's aloof, lone-thinker philosophy say that
it discourages valuable intellectual discourse between scholars in
different fields. When they do get together, at meal times, there is
little fraternising. The various disciplines tend to gather at
separate, segregated tables. Astrophysicists don't eat with art
historians. Philosophers do not dine with mathematicians. "What
mathematicians are doing is not anything I can understand or that they
can explain to me," says Walzer.
Michael Walzer may be the world's happiest philosopher. Tieless and
wearing trainers, he seems so relaxed he could be in danger of falling
apart. "When you come here you are completely free to do whatever you
want for the rest of your life," he says. "We are a small group of
very privileged people. We have extraordinary freedom. Nobody is
checking up on you. Nobody is judging the value of what you do. It is
unimaginably wonderful."
Setting new standards for the rhetoric of job satisfaction, Dr Walzer,
one of America's most distinguished political thinkers, is sitting in
his sun-flooded, book-lined, cosily cluttered office at the Institute
for Advanced Study (IAS), the exalted intellectual sanctuary where he
has laboured so contentedly for 25 years. "It's a very liberating
place," he says.
The institute, set in 500 acres of woodland in Princeton, New Jersey,
is where eminent eggheads have pondered the Big Questions since the
double-yolked Albert Einstein triumphantly arrived from Europe to be
enthroned as the founding member of a priesthood of thinkers.
It was conceived as "a paradise for scholars," and is now celebrating
its 75th anniversary as an intellectual powerhouse where some of the
world's most celebrated and accomplished brains - physicists,
historians, anthropologists, philosophers, astronomers, sociologists -
have gathered to contemplate the meaning and the order of things. They
get paid around a quarter of a million dollars a year and serious,
Rodinesque thinking is the only requirement. Meanwhile, the institute
chef toils over his menus, the wine cellar is kept well stocked and
tea is served every afternoon at three.
There are 26 permanent professors, currently three of them women, in
four schools - historical studies, mathematics, social science and the
natural sciences - and 190 post-doctoral scholars from universities
around the world are invited to visit for a year. But there are no
students, no curricula, no lectures, no tutoring, no committees, no
research programmes. Spared financial worries and the burdens of
teaching, members of the faculty are free to follow their intellectual
curiosity wherever it leads and for however long it takes.
Enlightenment is the only mission.
The faculty has been described as one of the most remarkable
collections of minds on the planet - it currently includes the
physicist Edward Witten, once nominated as "the cleverest man in the
world" - and the institute's crowded honour roll features the winners
of 19 Nobel Prizes and 32 Fields Medals, the Nobel equivalent for
mathematicians.
But even in paradise strife lurks and the institute's scholarly hush
is sometimes roiled by the same grubby matters that beset lesser minds
- intrigue, rivalry, gossip, personality clashes. "The academic world
is full of egos," says Professor Walzer. "We spend so much time alone
that narcissism is one of the standard pathologies." Around Harry's
Bar, adjoining the institute restaurant, excessive self-regard is
known as the Einstein Effect
the chairman of its trustees is James Wolfensohn, retiring president
of the World Bank - and a budget of $40m (£23m) a year.
It's the Real Madrid for brainiacs, and a long and diverse line of
intellectual superstars has alighted there since Einstein came to
town, pulled down his office blinds and announced: "I will a little
think." They include Kurt Gödel, recognised as the greatest logician
since Aristotle; the archaeologist Homer Thompson, who revolutionised
the world's understanding of Greek culture; Robert Oppenheimer,
forever identified as the father of the atom bomb; the mathematician
John von Neumann, who built the first high-speed, stored-programme
computer in the institute basement; and George Kennan, the diplomat
who devised America's Cold War doctrine of containment. f
In 1948, T S Eliot, the first artist in residence, wrote The Cocktail
Party there, but then left for Stockholm to collect his Nobel and
never came back. Most, though, are loath to leave and many still go to
their institute offices long after they've retired. The enticements
include the fine dinners that are served twice a week by resident chef
Michel Raymond - steamed Maine lobster, grilled buffalo and venison,
pan-seared yellowfin tuna - and a 9,500-bottle wine cellar.
The IAS is as good as it gets in the brow-puckering business, and
their free-range thinking runs far and wide, from galaxy dynamics,
bioethics and terrorism to art history, the evolution of language and
Byzantine theology. However, taking a break from high-mindedness, a
couple of astrophysicists did once apply themselves to trying to
develop a roulette system that would beat the casinos in nearby
Atlantic City
.
|
