Institute for Advanced Study

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Sociologist Alondra Nelson Joins Faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study

April 16, 2019

Alondra Nelson, an acclaimed sociologist, author, and researcher who explores questions in science, technology, and social inequality, has been appointed Professor and Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, effective July 1, 2019.

Ideas

Founders’ Statement on America and Higher Learning

“We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex.”

IAS News

Robbert Dijkgraaf "Ask Me Anything"

April 18, 2019

Robbert Dijkgraaf, IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor, hosted an AMA session on the AskScience Reddit forum, coordinated in partnership with the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, a co-organizer with the IAS and MoMath of the National Math Festival. Even if you missed the live Q&A, you can still view the thread with Dijkgraaf's answers.

IAS News

Patrick Geary and Narayana Murthy Elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

April 16, 2019

Patrick J. Geary, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the School of Historical Studies, and IAS Trustee Narayana Murthy have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with five former IAS Members, together representing all four Schools at the Institute.

IAS News

Akshay Venkatesh and Manjul Bhargava Elected Fellows of the Royal Society

April 15, 2019

Akshay Venkatesh, Professor in the School of Mathematics, and Manjul Bhargava, IAS Trustee and Member (2001–02) in the School, have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society.

Event

Remembering Irving Lavin 1927–2019

April 26, 2019 | 11:00am

The Institute for Advanced Study will celebrate the life and work of renowned art historian Irving Lavin, Professor in the School of Historical Studies for 45 years. The day will begin with a series of scholarly discussions by Phyllis Lambert, Charles Scribner III, Nicola Courtright, Frank Gehry, Jack Freiberg, David A. Levine, and Horst Bedekamp, followed in the afternoon by personal remembrances and a reception in Lavin's honor.

IAS News

4/23: Labyrinth Books and IAS Present a Public Conversation on "Troublemakers"

Dieter Thomä, Member in the School of Social Science, will discuss the crucial but often overlooked function of figures on the margins of society, examining troublemakers from the seventeenth century to the present day. He will be joined in the discussion by Jan-Werner Müller, past Member in the School of Historical Studies.

Ideas

The Black Hole Is the Atom of the Twenty-First Century

By Robbert Dijkgraaf

Black holes play a similar role as atoms did a hundred years ago. According to the laws of nature known at that time, they simply could not exist. They would self-destroy. But experiments taught us that nature had found a solution. The resolution of this paradox eventually led to the advent of quantum theory and a radical break in our understanding of reality, including a fundamental role of probability in physical processes … The iconic image is so exciting because it tells us that there is a solution for our homework. Nature has found a way to make black holes exist.

Ideas

The Persistence of Gender Inequality

By Joan Wallach Scott

Some of the reasons usually offered to explain the persistence of gender inequality include large abstractions: patriarchy, capitalism, male self-interest, misogyny, religion. These are, of course, useful categories to work with, but none of them can account for how deep-rooted these inequalities are in our psyches, our cultures, and our politics. My alternative explanation, based on psychoanalytic and political theory, has to do with the ways in which gender and politics are interdependent...

In the Media

A Groundbreaking Mathematician on the Gender Politics of Her Field

March 28, 2019

Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews 2019 Abel Prize Laureate Karen Uhlenbeck, Visitor in the School of Mathematics, for a Q&A covering Uhlenbeck's early fascination with mathematics, the often "disordered" path to a moment of discovery, and encouraging younger women to enter the field.

Ideas

Black Holes and the Information Paradox in String Theory

By Juan Maldacena

What if black holes behave like ordinary quantum mechanical objects—and information about them is not lost, as previously thought, but retained on their horizons?

Video

The Cool Alter-Ego of a Black Hole

By Juan Maldacena and Douglas Stanford

Black holes are spacetime geometries where the flow of time is distorted in a major way. What type of resource is a pair of entangled black holes?

In the Media

In Bubbles, She Sees a Mathematical Universe

April 09, 2019

Writing for the New York Times, former Director's Visitor Siobhan Roberts profiles 2019 Abel Laureate Karen Uhlenbeck, detailing her research on "bubbling" and its special significance to participants in the School of Mathematics' 2018–19 special year on "Variational Methods in Geometry."

Ideas

A Room, an Office, a Library, a World

By Monica H. Green

The Institute is a remarkably modest place. Like all Members, I was provided a lovely apartment, a simple office (with computer), access to libraries, lunch in the dining hall, tea in the afternoon. So how does new knowledge come out of such a simple mix?

Faculty and Members

Gene regulatory networks are the source of many human diseases. How do we infer network structure from partial data? What is the network most likely to have produced
the little bit that we can see?