Institute for Advanced Study

Today

Why a Medieval Woman Had Lapis Lazuli Hidden in Her Teeth

January 10, 2019

The Atlantic shares the story of an unexpected discovery in the dental plaque of a one-thousand-year-old German woman, highlighting how a team of researchers, including Alison Beach, Member (2013–14) and Visitor (2017) in the School of Historical Studies, pieced together the life of a medieval female scribe.

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.”

In the Media

Yemen’s Threatened Cultural Heritage

December 26, 2018

“There is a small glimmer of hope for Yemen in the form of a new project called the Zaydi Manuscript Tradition: A Digital Portal,” writes Christian C. Sahner in the Wall Street Journal.

Ideas

Women in French Politics

By Anne-Claire Defossez

In 2007, when Ségolène Royal announced her candidacy to the Socialist primary for the presidential election, Laurent Fabius, former prime minister under President François Mitterrand, ironically commented: “But who will take care of the kids?”

Video

Analysis and Beyond: Celebrating Jean Bourgain’s Work and Impact

In 2016, the Institute celebrated the work and impact of Professor Jean Bourgain. One of the most prolific and important mathematicians of our generation, Bourgain had an extraordinary ability to bring new perspectives to longstanding questions in number theory, probability theory, and statistical physics.

Ideas

A Conversation with Juan Maldacena

The Institute Letter interviews Juan Maldacena on quantum information, spacetime, and efforts to understand how the view of black holes as a quantum computer is consistent and compatible with black holes from Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Press Release

Study of Mutation Order May Change Understanding of How Tumors Develop

January 14, 2019

“This paper does not publish any new experiments,” explained Professor Emeritus Arnold J. Levine. “Rather, it outlines a new way to understand and interpret existing results . . . and suggests entirely new paths to studying the origins of cancers over a lifetime.”

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?

IAS News

Sir Michael Atiyah, Celebrated Mathematician, Dies at 89

January 11, 2019

As one of the world’s most revered mathematicians, Sir Michael Atiyah, past IAS Professor and Member in the School of Mathematics, produced work that has served as an inspiration to scholars around the globe, from his first major contribution—topological K-theory—to advances in quantum field theory.

Video

Spectacular Black Death

By Shatema Threadcraft

Think of what it means that all black bodies are not equally evoked by this all-important symbol of racial oppression… What then are those who would ameliorate the conditions of black women in society to do?

Faculty and Members

It’s remarkable that we know anything about antiquity. And therefore every tiny fragment of information we have is important, and we milk whatever we have for what it’s worth.