Institute For Advanced Study

Princeton, New Jersey • Summer 2003

The above computer-generated illustration comes from Ignition and Propagation of Nuclear Burning, a talk by Anatoly Spitkovsky (University of California, Berkeley) presented on May 11, 2003, and is the result of a numerical simulation of the propagation of thermonuclear burning on the surface of a rotating neutron star. Temperature levels on the stellar surface are indicated by color (from blue for no burning to yellow for full burning). The calculations are the result of a collaboration between Spitkovsky, Greg Ushomirsky (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Yuri Levin (Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics).

More than a quarter century after their discovery, thermonuclear flashes in accreting neutron stars continue to offer a unique setting for studying phenomena in extreme physical conditions. From May 11-13, 2003, the School of Natural Sciences sponsored Neutron Stars on Fire: Thermonuclear Probes of Rotation, Magnetism, and Nuclear Physics. The three-day conference attracted 35 international visitors and focused on the use of such X-ray bursts in studying the properties of ultra-dense matter, the synthesis of heavy elements, and the evolution of neutron star spins and magnetic fields. Organized by current Institute Members Feryal ézel and Dimitrios Psaltis, together with Lars Bildsten (Institute for Theoretical Physics/University of California, Santa Barbara), Erik Kuulkers (European Space Agency/European Space Research and Technology Center), and Tod Strohmayer (NASA/GSFC), the conference was supported, in part, by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. See School of Natural Sciences website <http://www.sns.ias.edu/~burst>. 

INSTITUTE APPOINTS NEW FACULTY

CAROLINE WALKER BYNUM:
SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL STUDIES

The Institute for Advanced Study has announced the appointment of Caroline Walker Bynum as professor of medieval European history in the School of Historical Studies. An historian of medieval religious thought and practice, Dr. Bynum has a special interest in Romeos piety, and the concepts of individuality and community in religious orders.

Caroline Walker Bynum is a scholar of great originality whose work shows that the study of an apparently distant world can enrich our own. She has given us a new understanding of how and why medieval people depicted life in the ways they did, and what they must have felt and thought. We are very pleased to welcome such an influential and widely-admired historian to the Institute, commented Phillip A. Griffiths, Director of the Institute.

Professor Bynum has taught all aspects of late antique and medieval history, church history, and intellectual history. Caroline Dynamos research and writing have broad implications not only for other medievalists but for historians generally, said Professor Glen Bowersock of the Institute's School of Historical Studies. Working in frontier areas where she creates intersections of intellectual history (especially the history of theology), the history of women, the history of the body, and modern writings on the nature of selfhood and identity, she has made many significant scholarly contributions with important implications for the development of history as a discipline.

Co-editor of five volumes and author of numerous articles and reviews, Dr. Bynum has written six books. Jesus as Mother (1982) explored gender and men's use of female images. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (1987) examined the differences in images that men and women use to think about themselves, and the critical influence of food imagery on women's writing, and on their religious behavior. Published at a time when writings by medieval religious women were relatively unknown, Holy Feast and Holy Fast has become a classic of women's history. It has been hailed as one of the most influential books in medieval European history of the late 20th century, and received the Governor's Award of the State of Washington in 1988, and the Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society for Church History in 1989. Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (1991) defined the field of body history for medieval studies and was awarded the Trilling Prize in 1992, and the AAR Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (Analytical-Descriptive Category), in 1992. The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity: 200-1336 (1995) was awarded the Phi Beta Kappa Emerson Prize for best book on the intellectual and cultural condition of man in 1995, as well as the Jacques Barzun Prize of the American Philosophical Society for the best book in cultural history in 1996. Dr. Bynum's Metamorphosis and Identity (2001) continues to explore identity and survival through ideas of change, wonder, and narrative.

Professor Bynum's appointment continues the Institute's tradition of work in medieval history that began with the appointment in 1951 of Ernst Kantorowicz, a scholar with an unusual talent for bridging the gap between medieval specialists and the larger world of historians. Kenneth Setton, a well-known authority on the Crusades, was appointed after Kantorowicz retired, and, after Setton's retirement in 1984, Giles Constable joined the faculty. He has fostered research over a broad spectrum of medieval topics and further strengthened the School's international reputation in the subject. Over the past half-century, most of the major medievalists in the western world have been visiting scholars at the Institute for varying periods of time.

Caroline Walker Bynum received her B.A. degree with high honors from the University of Michigan in 1962. She received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1963 and 1969, respectively, and taught in Harvard's history department from 1969-1973. In 1973, she moved to the department of church history at Harvard Divinity School, and in 1976 she served as a professor of history (and as an adjunct professor in religious studies and women's studies) at the University of Washington from 1976-1988. In 1988, she became professor of history at Columbia University, where she held the Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Chair in History prior to being named University Professor, Columbia's highest faculty honor, the first woman to be so honored, in 1999.

Dr. Bynum has received many other awards and honors, including fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Harvard University, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. From 1986 through 1991 she was a MacArthur Fellow, and in March of 1999 was chosen by the National Endowment for the Humanities as Jefferson Lecturer in the Humanities. In June 2001, she received the Centennial Medal of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for contributions to society. Dr. Bynum was awarded a Berlin Prize Fellowship by the American Academy in Berlin for the fall of 2002.

The recipient of eight honorary degrees, Dr. Bynum is a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America and a member of many professional organizations, including, among others, the Medieval Academy of America, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.

NICOLA DI COSMO:
SCHOOL OF HISTORICAL STUDIES

The Institute for Advanced Study has announced the appointment of Nicola Di Cosmo as the first Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies in the School of Historical Studies. Professor Di Cosmo is a specialist in the relationship between China and its Inner Asian neighbors. His research interests cover a wide temporal and geographic range: the Manchus and Kirghiz in the Ch'ing/Qing period, the history of the Mongols, the rise of the Xiongnu nomadic empire and its relationship with the Han empire, and the history of warfare in Central Asia, among them.

Di Cosmo's work is technically superb, highly innovative in approach, and rich in implications for the relations between nomadic and settled peoples, indeed, for simple and complex societies in general. His wide range of interests and interdisciplinary approach make this an ideal appointment for the Institute, said Phillip A. Griffiths, Director of the Institute.

We are especially pleased to have Professor Di Cosmo because of the growing importance of Asian Studies in the world of historical scholarship and, not least, because of his exceptionally broad and original approach to Chinese history, which is based on the use of Mongolian, and other East Central Asian, as well as Chinese, language sources, said Professor Jonathan Israel, Executive Officer of the School of Historical Studies. Professor Di Cosmo's linguistic skills include a thorough knowledge of Chinese, classical Mongolian and Manchu, and facility in Russian and Japanese, among other languages. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in Chinese History at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The study of history at the Institute for Advanced Study has traditionally meant the study of classical antiquity and Western Europe. While these fields still lie at the heart of the School, it has long been recognized that non-European history ought to be represented too. In 1990, the School expanded its activities to include the Islamic world, with the appointment of Oleg Grabar; and in 1994, a grant from the Mellon Foundation enabled it to experiment with other fields: Judaic studies (1994-96), pre-Columbian Latin America (1996-98), and China and Japan (1998-2003). Professor Di Cosmo's appointment will help to create an important center for Asian Studies at the Institute.

Professor Di Cosmo's early research focused on Inner Asia from the Bronze Age onwards. His most recent book, Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (2002), examines a number of important archaeological discoveries in China and Mongolia and in the neighboring parts of the Soviet Union, and is a sustained re-examination of the formation of the frontier between China and the steppe region in the first millennium BCE. He is also the author of Reports from the Northwest: A Selection of Manchu Memorials from Kashgar, 1806-1807 (1993). In progress are books to be titled, A Military History of the Manchu Conquest of China and The Mongol Empire in World History. Professor Di Cosmo's writings on military history have changed standard views of Chinese foreign relations. He has conducted several studies of Manchu military techniques, especially their employment of firearms, as well as the adaptation of Manchu forces to the special problems they encountered in fighting in the environments of the far south and southwest of China. He is co-author of A Documentary History of Manchu-Mongol Relations, 1616-1626 (2001) and On the Tracks of Manchu Culture 1644-1994: 350 Years After the Conquest of Peking (1995). Editor of Warfare in Inner Asian History, 500-1800 (2002), he co-edited Political Frontiers, Ethnic Boundaries and Human Geographies in Chinese History (2001) and Between Lapis and Jade: Ancient Cultures of Central Asia (1996). He has also written numerous book chapters, as well as articles in such publications as the Journal of World History, International History Review, and Central Asiatic Journal. Di Cosmo's review articles on Inner Asian history have appeared in the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient and Cambridge History of China.

Di Cosmo is on the advisory or editorial boards of the Journal of East Asian Archaeology, Asia Major, and Inner Asia. He has received fellowships from the New Zealand Royal Society, Harvard University's Milton Fund, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Center for Chinese Studies in Taipei, the Institute of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies in Rome, and the Italian Ministry of Education. In addition, he leads Smithsonian Study Tours to Mongolia.

Before assuming his position at Canterbury in 1999, Di Cosmo was assistant professor (1993-97) and then associate professor (1998-99) of Chinese Inner Asian History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. A visiting lecturer and Rockefeller Fellow in the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, Indiana University in 1992-93, he was Research Fellow at the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, and Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, from 1989 to 1992. Di Cosmo earned his 1982 B.A. (Laurea) in Chinese Studies at the University of Venice, and received his 1991 Ph.D. in Inner Asian History from Indiana University. He was a visiting Member in the School of Historical Studies in the spring semester, 1999.

The Henry Luce Foundation, Inc., based in New York City, which enabled the establishment of the Luce Foundation Professorship in East Asian Studies, is known for its efforts to encourage American-Asian understanding. East Asian studies in the School of Historical Studies is also funded by a grant from the Starr Foundation.

PHILLIP A. GRIFFITHS:
SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS

Phillip A. Griffiths, the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1991-03, will become a Faculty member in the Institute's School of Mathematics as of January 1, 2004. We are very pleased to welcome Phillip to our Faculty, said Enrico Bombieri, IBM von Neumann Professor in the School of Mathematics. He is an outstanding mathematician, known for his contributions to the use of transcendental methods in the study of algebraic varieties. His pioneering work on the variation of Hodge structure has become a central tool in algebraic geometry.

Phillip Griffiths has worked in a number of areas in mathematics, and throughout his work, has always been more interested in the applications of formalism to specific geometric problems than in developing the formalism as an objective in itself.

During the 1960s and 1970s, together with his collaborators, Dr. Griffiths introduced the fundamental notion of variation of Hodge structure. Working in the area of Lie groups and homogeneous spaces, Dr. Griffiths introduced the period matrix domains, or classifying spaces for Hodge structures. His main contribution in the area of complex analysis was, together with his collaborators, to establish the fundamental results in higher dimensional value distribution theory. Dr. Griffiths worked in the area of web geometry with S.S. Chern. The two men formulated the basic problem concerning the algebraicity of webs of maximal rank. In the early 1980s, Dr. Griffiths formulated a theory of dynamical systems that turned out to be an effective geometric and computational method with numerous applications in control theory. Together with Chern, Robert Bryant, and others, in the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Griffiths worked extensively in the theory of exterior differential systems and applications of that theory to the geometric study of partial differential equations. In recent years, Dr. Griffiths has resumed his work, in collaboration with Mark Green, in the study of algebraic cycles.

Phillip Griffiths, born in North Carolina, received his B.S. from Wake Forest University in 1959 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 1962. Following appointments at Berkeley and Princeton, he taught mathematics at Harvard University from 1972-83 where he was appointed Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics in 1983. He was a Member in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1968-70. In 1983, he was named Provost and James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics at Duke University, and in 1991, he became the seventh Director of the Institute for Advanced Study.

Dr. Griffiths, the author of two books in his field and the co-author of eight, is the author or co-author of 111 published articles. He holds honorary degrees from universities in four countries. He served on the National Science Board from 1991-96. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Associate of the Third World Academy of Sciences. From 1993-99, Dr. Griffiths chaired the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP), which is the principal science policy arm of the U.S. National Academies of Science and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. In this role, Dr. Griffiths was active in recommending science policy strategies to federal agencies and to Congress.

Dr. Griffiths is Secretary of the International Mathematical Union. A former member of the Board of Directors of Bankers Trust New York Corporation, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Oppenheimer Funds and of GSI Lumonics. He also serves as Chair of the Science Institutes Group, founded in 1999 to provide scientific guidance for the Millenium Science Initiative, which works to build capacity in science and promote its uses in the developing world.

As a practicing mathematician, Dr. Griffiths has maintained an active research program, taught mathematics graduate courses, and, while serving as Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, supervised eight graduate students working towards Ph.D. degrees in mathematics.

NEWS OF THE INSTITUTE COMMUNITY

JOHN BAHCALL, Richard Black Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, has been awarded the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Professor Bahcall and co-honorees Raymond Davis, Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and Masatoshi Koshiba, Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Tokyo, received the award for work that led to an understanding of neutrino emission from the sun. The citation notes that Professor Bahcall's work provided the theoretical basis for the experimental work of first Davis and then Koshiba. The 2003 laureates were honored at an awards celebration at the Franklin Institute on April 24.

In March, the Dan David Foundation announced that Professor Bahcall would receive one of three Dan David Prizes, each of which carries an award of $1M with the stipulation that $100K be used for scholarships for young scholars in the winner's field. Professor Bahcall received his award for pioneering the development of neutrino astrophysics.

In May, The Royal Astronomical Society announced the award of its highest honor, the Gold Medal (Astronomy), to Professor Bahcall. Each year, the RAS awards a gold medal in astronomy and in geophysics. The first Gold Medal was given to Charles Babbage in 1824. Other winners include Henri Poincar° (1900), A.S. Eddington (1924), Albert Einstein (1926), Fred Hoyle (1968), and H. Bondi (2001).

In March, ENRICO BOMBIERI, IBM von Neumann Professor in the School of Mathematics, was elected a Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences.

GLEN BOWERSOCK, Professor of Ancient History in the School of Historical Studies, and PATRICIA CRONE, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies, served on the organizing committee for the 2003 North American Syriac Symposium, the fourth such to be held in the United States. The symposium, Syriac Christianity: Culture at the Crossroads, will take place at the Princeton Theological Seminary, July 9-12, and includes an international forum on Syriac computing. It is co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, and The Syriac Institute, which promotes the study and preservation of the legacy and language of Syriac, the ancient Aramaic dialect of Syria.

JUAN MALDACENA, Professor of Theoretical Physics in the School of Natural Sciences, was honored by Pope John Paul II at a ceremony in November 2002 as the recipient of the Pius XI Medal, the award of the Pontificia Academia Scientiarum, in recognition of outstanding merit in the field of natural sciences. The medal is awarded every two years to a scientist under the age of forty-five. Past recipients include Luis A. Caffarelli (Faculty member in the School of Mathematics, 1986-96), and former School of Natural Sciences Members Aage Niels Bohr (1948) and Gerard t'Hooft (1973 and 1976).

ERIC MASKIN, Albert O. Hirschman Professor in the School of Social Science, received the title of Monash Distinguished Visiting Scholar in a ceremony at Monash University in Australia in February 2003.

KIRK VARNADOE, Professor of Art History in the School of Historical Studies, delivered the fifty-second annual, 2003, A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, which he titled Pictures of Nothing: Abstract Art since Pollock. The six lectures took place at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The first lecture, Why Abstract Art? took place on March 30, followed by Survivals and Fresh Starts on April 6, Minimalism on April 13, After Minimalism on April 27, Satire, Irony, and Abstract Art on May 4, and Abstract Art Now on May 11.

MICHAEL WALZER, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science, received an Honorary Doctorate from Tel Aviv University on May 17.

In April, OLEG GRABAR, Professor Emeritus of Islamic Art and Culture in the School of Historical Studies, received an honorary degree of Doctor in Humane Letters from the University of Michigan.

Cambridge University Press has published An Artist Against the Third Reich, by PETER PARET, Professor Emeritus of modern European history in the School of Historical Studies. The monograph on art as politics in Nazi Germany discusses the work of sculptor and dramatist Ernst Barlach.

Scenes, a new instrumental composition by Artist-in-Residence JON MAGNUSSEN, premiered in San Jose, California, at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts, April 24-27. The Symphony San Jose Silicon Valley commissioned and performed the work during its inaugural season. Scenes, which was written at the Institute over a two-month period, showcases piccolo, bassoon, tuba, vibraphone, marimba, and violin, and was inspired by the island of Hawaii, where Magnussen grew up, and by The Folding Cliffs, a poetic narrative by William S. Merwin.

CECILIA LUNARDINI, a visiting Member in the School of Natural Sciences, has won the Gamberini Prize, awarded by the Scuola Normale in Pisa, for her Ph.D. thesis in theoretical physics.

2003 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have been awarded to seven past Members of the Institute: DUILIU EMANUEL DIACONESCU (School of Natural Sciences, 1998-01), XIAOHUI FAN (School of Natural Sciences, 2001-02), MICHAEL M. FOGLER (School of Natural Sciences, 1997-00), WEE TECK GAN, (School of Mathematics, 1998-01), KENTARO HORI (School of Natural Sciences, 2001-02), MICHAEL HUTCHINGS (School of Mathematics, 2001-02), and ALEXANDRA D. IONESCU (School of Mathematics, 1999-00).

PURAGRA GUHATHAKURTA has won the National Research Council of Canada's Herzberg Memorial Prize and Fellowship. Dr. Puragra (Raja) Guhathakurta was a Member of the School of Natural Sciences (1989-92). The Herzberg Memorial Prize and Fellowship was established in 1999 to commemorate the late Nobel laureate, Dr. Gerhard Herzberg, known as the Father of Modern Molecular Spectroscopy.

In January 2003, VICTOR GUILLEMIN, a Member in the School of Mathematics (1977-78), received the 2003 Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement from the American Mathematical Society. Guillemin, a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was honored for playing a critical role in the development of a number of important areas in analysis and geometry.

NICHOLAS KATZ, Member in the School of Mathematics (1991-92, 1995-96, 1999-00, 2001-02), and PETER SARNAK, Member in the School of Mathematics (1999-02), received the 2003 Conant Prize from the American Mathematical Society for their article Zeroes of Zeta Functions and Symmetry.

HENRY KIM, Member in the School of Mathematics (1999-00), was awarded a Centennial Fellowship from the American Mathematical Society to further his research on the theory of automorphic forms and L-functions.

HIRAKU NAKAJIMA, professor of mathematics at Kyoto University and Member in the School of Mathematics (1998-99), received the 2003 Cole Prize in Algebra from the American Mathematical Society for his work in representation theory and geometry.

The 2003 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Earth Science has been awarded to NORMAN A. PHILLIPS, former principal scientist at the National Weather Service, National Meteorological Center, and to JOSEPH SMAGORINSKY, former director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for major contributions to the prediction of weather and climate. Drs. Phillips and Smagorinsky worked as part of the Institute's Meteorology Project under the direction of Jule G. Charney and John von Neumann.

The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has named JEAN-PIERRE SERRE, a professor emeritus at the College de France, Paris, as the first winner of the Abel Prize in mathematics. Professor Serre has been a Member in the School of Mathematics many times during the academic years 1955 to 1984. The prize of $800,000 was awarded for Professor Serre's key role in shaping the modern form of many parts of mathematics, including topology, algebraic geometry, and number theory.

The 2002-03 Wolf Prize in Mathematics, awarded by the American Mathematical Society, has been given to MIKIO SATO of Kyoto University, a Member in the School of Mathematics (1960-62), and to John T. Tate of the University of Texas, a Member in the School of Mathematics (1959-60). Sato was honored for his creation of algebraic analysis, including hyperfunction and microfunction theory, holonomic quantum field theory, and a unified theory of soliton equations. Tate was honored for his creation of fundamental concepts in algebraic number theory.

ABIGAIL THOMPSON, professor of mathematics at .the University of California at Davis and a Member in the School of Mathematics (1990-91, 2000-01), was awarded the 2003 Satter Prize by the American Mathematical Society for her work in three-dimensional topology.

Each year, the American Astronomical Society selects an outstanding theorist and an outstanding observer, under 35 years of age, to receive the Warner Prize and Pierce Prize, respectively. This year, XIAOHUI FAN, Member in the School of Natural Sciences (2002), received the 2003 Pierce Prize, which was awarded in 1996 to Michael Strauss, Member in the School of Natural Sciences (1991-95). MATIAS ZALDARRIAGA, Member (1998-01) and W. M. Keck Visiting Associate in Cosmology in the School of Natural Sciences (2002-03), received the 2003 Warner Prize. Past award winners associated with the Institute are Faculty member John Bahcall (1970) and former Members Paul Joss (1980), Roger Blandford (1982), Scott Tremaine (1983), David Spergel (1994), Sterl Phinney (1995), Marc Kamionowski (1998), and Wayne Hu (2000).

INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY AND PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PROGRAM FOR WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS 

Over 60 women mathematicians from across the country gathered on the Institute campus for this year's Program for Women in Mathematics. The 10-day residential program, co-sponsored by the Institute and Princeton University, took place from May 12-22 and included undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars and senior researchers.
The program focused on Mathematical Biology. Short courses were given by Dorothy Buck of Brown University (applied mathematics), Lisa Fauci of Tulane University (mathematics), Naomi Leonard of Princeton University (mechanical and aerospace engineering), and Tandy Warnow of the University of Texas at Austin (computer science). An additional talk was given by Martin Nowak, head of the Institute's Program in Theoretical Biology.

A lot of women in the field of mathematics are interested in biological applications of mathematics as opposed to my own particular interests in mathematical physics or engineering applications, says program founder Karen Uhlenbeck, holder of the Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair at the University of Texas at Austin, and a former Distinguished Visiting Professor (1997-98) and Member at the Institute (1979-80, 1995-96). Dr. Uhlenbeck directs the program together with Mary Pugh of the University of Toronto, who is also a former program participant.

Professor Uhlenbeck was also one of the founders of the Institute for Advanced Study/Park City Mathematics Institute, an annual program for high school teachers, undergraduates, graduate students, post-doctoral students and senior researchers. Responding to the concerns of established researchers, as well as those who view the field from institutional perspectives, that women were not succeeding in the mathematics community at the expected rate, Uhlenbeck and her IAS/PCMI colleague Chuu-Lian Terng organized a mentoring program for women mathematicians in 1993 to run in conjunction with IAS/PCMI. The success of this program resulted in its becoming an annual event held at the Institute for Advanced Study, for 10 days in late May, for the last 10 years.

The program's success can be seen by the fact that it celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Institute in May, and by the achievements of program graduates, says Uhlenbeck, citing the examples of Mary Pugh, this year's program organizer, and Eleny Ionel, who was invited to speak at the 2002 International Congress of Mathematicians. This program provides a chance for women to advance their careers in mathematics. Often women have not had the opportunity to work with other serious women in their profession or listen to more than an occasional lecture or course given by a woman. The network formed through contacts with women functions like any other network in giving opportunities, support, and inside information to its members. In accordance with the principle that mathematics should be inclusive, not exclusive, however, the activities of the program are open to all, regardless of age and gender.

In 2002, the Program for Women in Mathematics became a joint program of the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University.

Each year, the program offers a variety of formal and informal activities to encourage interaction. These include an undergraduate/beginning graduate student lecture course, a graduate course, research seminars, guest lectures and presentations by participants at all levels, working problem sessions, and a Women in Science Seminar. The program emphasizes mathematics learning and research, mentoring, peer relations, and career opportunities.

The Organizing Committee included Ranee Brylinski, Pennsylvania State University; Sun-Yung Alice Chang, Princeton University; Ingrid Daubechies, Princeton University; Joan Feigenbaum, Yale University; Antonella Grassi, University of Pennsylvania; Nancy Hingston, The College of New Jersey; Rhonda Hughes, Bryn Mawr College; Robert MacPherson, Institute for Advanced Study; Cynthia Diane Rudin, Princeton University; Janet Talvacchia, Swarthmore College; and Lisa Traynor, Bryn Mawr College.

10th ANNUAL PROGRAM REUNION

In celebration of the program's 10th anniversary at the Institute, past participants gathered over the weekend of May 16-18. Reunion activities were organized by Antonella Grassi. Speakers at the reunion included Phillip A. Griffiths, Director of the Institute for Advanced Study; Philip Holmes, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University; and past program participants Tamar Friedmann of Princeton University, Rachel Pries of Columbia University, Amber Puha of California State University at San Marcos, and Sema Salur of Northwestern University. Eleven alumnae participated in a research poster session organized by Cynthia Rudin.

Reunion activities began on Friday, May 16, and included a reception and dinner.

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE COMPLETES SECOND YEAR OF A THREE-YEAR FOCUS ON ETHICS

In the academic year 2001-02, the School of Social Science began a three-year focus on ethical issues. During the second year of the program, Faculty and visiting Members discussed the topic of corruption and its opposites: civic virtue, public responsibility, and bureaucratic rationality. A series of thematic seminars met throughout the year on alternate Wednesdays in the Shelby White-Leon Levy Room to examine a range of questions: the pervasiveness of corruption and what it means to talk about states (and markets) in modernist and democratic terms; ethical prescriptions of citizenship and official accountability within cultures; similarities and differences in prevailing forms of corruption in Western democracies, the developing world, and the countries of the former Soviet bloc; the nature of corruption; and responses to corruption. While the formal sessions of this thematic seminar concluded in May, a smaller group of Faculty and visiting Members will continue to meet and hold weekly discussions through July 9. 

What has made it most interesting to me this year, commented Michael Walzer, UPS Foundation Professor in the School, is the coming together of people from three very different disciplines economics, political science, and anthropology with very different conceptions of what corruption is and how to study it. Economists, political scientists, and anthropologists generally work in isolation from each other and rarely have to defend what they do or try to figure out how to make it comprehensible to people doing something else entirely.

For the third year of the School's focus on ethics, the theme will be the social implications of bioethics, examining moral issues arising within the practice of medicine. The School will study ways in which medical technologies, drugs, procedures, diagnostics, genetic testing, genetic engineering, and surgeries, have changed or eroded the boundaries between public and private and raised new dilemmas for the law, public policy, and individual rights, as well as the social and intellectual history of the field, and of the new profession of ethicist.

INSTITUTE HOSTS STATE LEGISLATORS

The Institute for Advanced Study held a dinner for State Legislators at the Institute on Thursday, May 8. Pictured from left are: Peter R. Kann, Institute Trustee and Chairman and CEO, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.; Senator Leonard Lance; Institute Director Phillip A. Griffiths; and Gordon A. MacInnes, Assistant Commissioner for Abbott Implementation, NJ Department of Education. Speakers at the working dinner were molecular biologist Arnold Levine, visiting professor in the School of Natural Sciences, who discussed Potential Breakthroughs in Theoretical Biology, and Director's Visitor George Dyson, who described The Building of the First Computer at the Institute for Advanced Study. Computer industry analyst Esther Dyson was a special guest at the dinner.

AMIAS SPONSORS PUBLIC LECTURE ON THE LEGACY OF JOHN VON NEUMANN

This year marks the centenary of the birth of mathematician John von Neumann, in Budapest, Hungary. George Dyson, Director's Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, presented an AMIAS-sponsored public lecture titled Von Neumann's Universe: 1903-2003, on March 6 in Wolfensohn Hall. Few mathematicians have contributed both to mathematics and its applications across such a wide range of fields, said Dyson, who presented materials from the Institute archives illustrating several facets of von Neumann's career, with an emphasis on his revolutionary work in computing, and some work in computational biology in which the Institute took the lead.

Recognized as one of the 20th century's most significant mathematicians, John von Neumann was a Faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1933 until his death in 1957. From late 1945 on, von Neumann oversaw the development and construction of a large-scale, high-speed electronic computing instrument that he envisioned as a tool for mathematicians. His work at the Institute provided the blueprint for the modern computer. The Electronic Computer Project's engineering research and development culminated in 1952 with the dedication of a stored program computer. Fifteen clones of the original machine were built. They appeared all over the world, including Russia and Israel. Known as the IAS, the Institute's prototype (which introduced what has become known as the von Neumann Architecture) and von Neumann's 1946 paper, written with Arthur W. Burks and Hermann H. Goldstine: Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument, heralded the dawn of the information age.

Dyson has brought to light logbooks of the machine's operation, annotated with comments and comic sketches by the late Julian Bigelow, the project's engineer. These record the triumphs as well as the frustrations of working with hardware that was being pushed to accommodate ideas ahead of its capabilities. Dyson likens the task of building the stored-program computer using the technology of the day to that of performing surgery on a tiny infant using instruments designed for a horse.
Other documents from the archives convey the atmosphere of the Institute during the period of post-World War II economic stringency. Early Institute budgets reveal the cost of hiring Institute Faculty, as well as the Institute's constant concern for housing its personnel and their families. An internal memo complains of von Neumann's engineers consuming too much sugar at tea-time. Among the telling remarks made during this time, Dyson shared a wry comment made by his father, Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, who remarked in a letter dated October 20, 1954, that The School of Mathematics has a permanent establishment which is divided into three groups, one consisting of pure mathematics, one consisting of theoretical physicists, and one consisting of Professor von Neumann.
An historian of science and technology, Dyson's first book, Baidarka: The Kayak (1986), and his efforts to resurrect the Aleut kayak, have featured in television documentaries, such as Scientific American Frontiers, and such publications as The New York Times and Time magazine. His second book, Darwin Among the Machines (1997), helped place the IAS Electronic Computer Project within the unusually broad spectrum of ideas that were revolutionized by the construction, here in Princeton, of this machine.

His most recent book, Project Orion (2002), examines the still-classified attempt, between 1957 and 1965, to build a 4,000-ton nuclear-bomb-propelled interplanetary spaceship. As son of the project's chief scientist, George Dyson has an unusual inside perspective, which he shared with the Institute community on January 30, in an illustrated lecture for ages ten and up. Project Orion 1957-65 described the value of imaginative speculation to the development of science.

Following the success of these two lectures, both of which were sponsored by AMIAS, the Association of Members of the Institute for Advanced Study, Dyson spoke about his archival discoveries and what they revealed about the early years of the Institute. He presented his findings to the campus community on Friday, May 1, at a talk sponsored by the School of Historical Studies.

A frequent speaker on science and technology, Mr. Dyson attended Princeton High School and the University of California and has been a research associate and visiting lecturer at Western Washington University since 1993.

ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

The Institute for Advanced Study's 2002-03 concert season, organized by Jon Magnussen, Artist-in-Residence, embraced music spanning nine centuries, from the 12th to the 21st. Last October, Fuma Sacra, the vocal ensemble-in-residence at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, presented a program of love songs that included works by Pierre Certon, Giraut de Bornelh, Josquin Desprez, Orlando di Lasso, Guillaume Dufay, Giovanni Gastoldi, Claudio Monteverdi, and Robert Heppener, as well as contemporary works by Steven Stucky, Augusta Read Thomas, and Institute Artist-in-Residence Jon Magnussen. In the pre-concert discussion, Magnussen was joined by Steven Stucky, Given Foundation Professor of Composition at Cornell University, and Fuma Sacra's Artistic Director Andrew Megill, Associate Professor of Music at Westminster Choir College, for a conversation on the challenges of combining music and text.

In November, pianist Malcolm Bilson, a leading exponent of the period instrument movement, brought his own fortepiano, an 1816 Nannette Streicher copy built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf in 1998, to the Institute for a series of concerts. The program comprised the Beethoven Sonata in E-flat Major, Opus 7 (1796) and Seven Bagatelles, Opus 33 (1802), and the Schubert Sonata in F-sharp Minor, D.571 (1817) and Impromptu in F Minor, Opus 142/1, D. 935 (1828).

Also in November, composer John Harbison, Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discussed his work Four Psalms, for chorus, orchestra, and vocal soloists. Professor Harbison spoke about the gestation of the work, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, and which received its New York premiere on November 3, 2002, at Carnegie Hall.

In February, baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman presented a program that included Cinq mélodies de Venise, by Gabriel Fauré, Hugo Wolf’s Three Songs on Texts of Michelangelo and Poems of Mörike, songs by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Psalm 21, from Jon Magnussen’s recent score for the José Limón ballet, Psalm.

Also in February, David Breitman accompanied tenor Scott McCoy for a performance of Schubert's Winterreise.

The season concluded with concerts by the Greek-born Antigoni Goni, head of the guitar department of the Juilliard Pre-College Division. In March, she performed Leo Brouwer’s El Decameròn Negro, Agustin Barrios-Mangoré’s Three Pieces, Joaquín Rodrigo’s Invocación y danza, Sergio Assad’s Three Greek Letters, Federico Mompou’s Suite Compostelana, and Alberto Ginastera’s Sonata, Opus 47.

HARRY WOOLF
1923 - 2003

Harry Woolf, Director of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1976-87 and subsequently Professor-at-Large at the Institute, passed away at his home in Princeton on January 6, 2003. He was 79.

Harry Woolf was born in New York City on August 12, 1923. During World War II, he fought in the Pacific Theater and was awarded three Bronze Stars. After military service, he earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in 1948 and 1949 from the University of Chicago, and in 1955, a Ph.D. in the history of science from Cornell University.

From 1953-76, Dr. Woolf taught physics and the history of science at Boston University, Brandeis University, the University of Washington, and, finally, the Johns Hopkins University, where he was Willis K. Shepard Professor of the history of science from 1961-76. Dr. Woolf also served as visiting professor to universities in India (1961) and six West African countries (1971).

From 1972-76, Dr. Woolf was Provost of Johns Hopkins University, serving during a period of academic reorganization that required shared duties with the university president. At the time of his appointment as Director of the Institute, Johns Hopkins President Steven Muller said, The Johns Hopkins University and I personally will find Harry Woolf irreplaceable. He is a scholar and a gentlemen of rare talent and charm.

He stepped down as the Institute's fifth Director in 1987 to become Professor-at-Large, and in 1994, Professor-at-Large, Emeritus. Under Dr. Woolf's directorship, the Institute saw significant growth and development in many directions, including a substantial increase in the endowment of the Institute; notable changes in the presence of computer technology in academic research; and the establishment of the Institute Archives. He established the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study, and helped to establish a fund in support of an endowed chair and fellowships for outstanding young scholars in honor of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Institute Director from 1947 to 1966. To mark the centennial of the birth of Einstein (March 14, 1879), Dr. Woolf directed a symposium that brought scientists, humanists, and friends to the Institute in 1979. The volume he edited, Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein, records the occasion. Dr. Woolf also created A Community of Scholars, an invaluable record of the Institute's Faculty and Members during its first fifty years.

Dr. Woolf was the author of The Transits of Venus: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Science (1959). He was also the editor of Quantification: A History of the Meaning of Measurement in the Natural and Social Sciences (1961); Science as a Cultural Force, (1964), for which he wrote the introduction; the 16-volume Dictionary of Scientific Biography (assoc. ed., 1964-80); Some Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein (ed. and contributor, 1980); The Analytic Spirit, Essays in the History of Science (1981); and The Sources of Science (1964-93).

From 1958-1964, while at the University of Washington, Dr. Woolf became the editor of ISIS, a scholarly review devoted to the history of science. In addition, he served on the editorial boards of Source Books in the History of the Sciences; the Interdisciplinary Science Review; and The Writings of Albert Einstein, as well as on the publications committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung Medal in 1990, Dr. Woolf was a fellow of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the recipient of four honorary degrees.

Dr. Woolf served as President and Chairman of the Board, and for many years as a Trustee, of the Johns Hopkins Program for International Education in Gynecology and Obstetrics, Inc. of which he was a founding member.

He also served on the advisory committees of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, public television's NOVA (WGBH-Boston), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Woolf was a member of the Board of Directors of Family Health International. His other most recent offices included the advisory boards of Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Westmark International; as well as service as a trustee of Reed College, the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Advanced Technology Laboratories, Spacelabs Medical, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Woolf was a past member of the International Research and Exchanges Board and the Board of Governors of Tel-Aviv University. Dr. Woolf's association with Bankers Trust Alex Brown (now Deutsche Asset Management) began in 1976; and from 1997-99, he served as President of their Flag Funds.

He was a member of the Board of Governors at Tel-Aviv University as well as a member of the advisory councils of the John F. Kennedy Institute for Handicapped Children and the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Woolf's hobbies included cooking, skiing, sailing, and travel, which he pursued as long as possible despite the onset of Parkinson's disease.

FRANK E. TAPLIN, JR.
1915 - 2003

Frank Elijah Taplin, Jr., a long-standing Friend of the Institute for Advanced Study, where he was a Trustee for more than thirty years, passed away on May 11, 2003, in Princeton. An active member of the Board of Trustees since 1971, he was appointed Trustee Emeritus in 1988.

Articulate on behalf of the Institute's intellectual mission, Frank Taplin believed strongly in the Institute's role in the creation of new knowledge and in mentoring young scholars and scientists. With his wife, Peggy, he endowed two Memberships designated to the School of Natural Sciences. A man who always led by example, Mr. Taplin inspired support over the years for various Institute initiatives, including the IAS/Park City Mathematics Institute and the Artist-in-Residence program, at critical points.

In 1997, his personal leadership was vital in seeding the Institute's efforts to preserve 589 acres of Institute woods and fields, a vital ecological link in a network of open space between New York City and Philadelphia. One of the land markers commemorating the preservation effort is dedicated to the foresight and generosity of Peggy and Frank Taplin.

Mr. Taplin was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 22, 1915. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University (B.A., 1937) and a graduate of Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar, M.A. in Jurisprudence, 1939), he earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1941. He then volunteered for the Navy and served in naval intelligence during WWII, rising from Ensign to Lieutenant Commander. Mr. Taplin received the Naval Commendation Ribbon and was made an Honorary Member (Military Division) of the Order of the British Empire (M.B.E.) by New Zealand in 1949.

In 1957, he moved from Cleveland to Princeton, where he served as assistant to Princeton University President Robert Goheen until 1959.

From 1977-84, Mr. Taplin was the president of the Metropolitan Opera Association, Inc., where he had been a director since 1961. He served Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in many capacities, and was the first president and a trustee of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. He took on leadership roles at the Marlboro School of Music and Festival; the Council of Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library; the American Friends of Covent Garden and the Royal Ballet; the American Friends of the Aldeburgh Festival and the Aldeburgh Foundation; the American-Scandinavian Foundation; and the Association of American Rhodes Scholars. Mr. Taplin was a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Bar Association.

Mr. Taplin was an accomplished pianist. Gifted with perfect pitch, he performed with first class professional musicians and enjoyed playing classical music as well as jazz.
Frank Taplin, whose vision encompassed the environment, music, education, and human rights, was driven by a love of music, poetry, language, and learning, and his long career in philanthropy was marked by his personal curiosity and richness of spirit.

LEON LEVY
1925 - 2003

Leon Levy, a Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study for fifteen years, passed away on April 6, 2003.

An active Trustee since 1988, Mr. Levy contributed to his role as Chair of the Executive and Finance Committees, Vice Chairman of the Board, and President of the Corporation all of the remarkable talents and qualities that made him a legendary financier. His business acumen and leadership ensured that the Institute remained on a sound financial course during a period when very few possessed the ability to chart such a course.

Curiosity-driven himself, Mr. Levy found it natural that scholars at the Institute would be driven by their intellectual curiosity. His own intellectual vitality was remarkable, and his interests wide-ranging. A renowned collector of Roman and Greek antiquities and a man fascinated by ancient civilizations, Mr. Levy's interest in psychology began with his undergraduate studies and continued throughout his entire life.

Leon Levy's belief in the importance of philanthropy was well-known and frequently demonstrated. His generosity to the Institute extends back to Mr. Levy's early days on the Board, when he and his wife, Shelby White, provided major support towards endowing the George F. Kennan Chair in the School of Historical Studies, and towards the construction of Wolfensohn Hall. In addition, the couple provided support towards strengthening endowed Memberships in the School of Natural Sciences.

In 1998, Mr. Levy and Ms. White established the Initiatives Fund at the Institute, which provides a mechanism for change within the Institute's structure and allows it the flexibility to explore a new area in which it might make a major contribution. Mr. Levy believed that significant advances are frequently made at the interface between two fields, and these synergies do not simply occur whenever people from two different fields get together. Rather, these synergies take place when each of the areas is ripe for addressing scientific problems at their interface. In Mr. Levy's view, this was the situation between the life sciences and the physical sciences and mathematics at the time the Initiatives Fund encouraged the creation of the Program in Theoretical Biology, now completing its fifth year.

Thinking beyond the parameters of conventional wisdom and charting a course into the future were familiar activities to Leon Levy, one of the pioneers of the mutual fund industry and a man regarded as one of the guiding lights of the institutional brokerage business. Born in New York City on September 23, 1925, Mr. Levy completed undergraduate studies in psychology and music at City College of New York and started graduate work in psychology prior to beginning his career on Wall Street as a securities analyst.
In 1951, he became a partner at Oppenheimer & Co., then a small brokerage firm. Mr. Levy and his partner, Jack Nash, built the firm into one of the leading brokerage and mutual fund companies in the nation. In 1982, the two men left Oppenheimer to start their own investment company, Odyssey Partners. By the time they liquidated Odyssey Partners in 1998, the firm had produced one of the highest rates of return to investors of any such partnership over more than fifteen years.

Leon Levy was the Senior Partner of Odyssey Partners, chairman of the board of trustees of the Oppenheimer Funds, New York, and president of the Jerome Levy Institute for Economic Research, which he founded in 1986 at Bard College.

Mr. Levy claimed that the opportunity to serve on the Institute Board was one of the highest forms of recognition that could be given to someone from the ¯real world.' If I have been a very good fellow in this incarnation, he speculated in a letter to Phillip A. Griffiths, perhaps I will be fortunate enough to come back as a scholar in the next.

PROSPECTS IN THEORETICAL PHYSICS FOCUSES ON 
COSMOLOGY, PARTICLES, AND STRINGS

More than 100 young physicists will attend Prospects in Theoretical Physics, an outreach program to be held on the Institute campus June 30-July 11. Designed for advanced graduate students in physics and astrophysics, the program focus this year is Cosmology, Particles, and Strings.

Lectures and seminars will be organized around mini-courses on, among other topics, thermal history, perturbation theory, particle phenomenology, nucleosynthesis, and string phenomenology. Participants, working at the interface of astrophysics, particle physics, and cosmology, will explore such questions as: What is dark matter? How did the universe begin? Is there a cosmological constant? What are the masses of the neutrinos, and how have they shaped the evolution of the universe? and Are there additional spacetime dimensions?

Members of the organizing committee are John Bahcall, professor in the Institute's School of Natural Sciences, and Princeton University professors Neta Bahcall, David Spergel, Paul Steinhardt, and Chiara Nappi, who chairs the committee. Among the lecturers, in addition to those on the committee, are Juan Maldacena and Edward Witten of the Institute, professors Peter Meyers, Bohdan Paczynski, Lyman Page, P. James Peebles, Uros Seljak, Thomas Shutt, Suzanne Staggs, Michael Strauss, Licia Verde, and Herman Verlinde of Princeton University, and Arthur Kosowsky of Rutgers University. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City, will host a session at the planetarium.

The program, now in its second year, encourages the participation of women, minorities, and students from institutions with smaller programs in astrophysics and particle physics. It is supported this year by the Concordia Foundation, the J. Seward Johnson, Sr., Charitable Trusts, the National Science Foundation, and the Friends of the Institute for Advanced Study. For more information, see <www.ias.edu/pitp>.

BIG IDEAS

BIG IDEAS, the four-part public television series produced by Thirteen/WNET New York, features several of the Faculty and scholars at the Institute in conversation with moderator Ira Flatow. The programs, titled Exploring the Cosmos, Einstein's Dream, A New History of the World, and Thinking Big, aired in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut area on April 3, 10, 24, and May 1, respectively. The series is being shown in over 45 markets across the country. Check local PBS listings for air times and dates, or the BIG IDEAS website. A set of four video cassettes of the series is available for purchase from Thirteen/WNET (for more information, call 1-800-336-1917). BIG IDEAS has been made possible by the generous support of the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, Strachan and Vivian Donnelley, the Ambrose Monell Foundation and Rosalind P. Walter. The Institute is deeply grateful to Trustee Robert B. Menschel, without whom BIG IDEAS would not have been possible, and expresses special thanks to Trustee Emeritus Ralph Hansmann for his support and encouragement of this project.