Freeman Dyson

"...Freeman Dyson had a lot of stories. One of my favorites was about how he decided to turn from studying mathematics to studying physics. As he told me in his “Math Life” interview, he was walking down the King’s Parade in Cambridge with a friend...

By Kristen R. Ghodsee, Member (2006–07) in the School of Social Science:

"For Dyson, the mysteries of human behavior were just as deep and enduring as the mysteries of the universe. In the sheer breadth of his interests, Dyson embodied the ideal...

Robbert Dijkgraaf, IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor, remembers Freeman J. Dyson, the legendary physicist, writer, and fearless intellectual explorer who served on the Faculty in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for over 65 years. “As an eternal graduate student, a ‘rebel’ in his own words, Dyson was unafraid to question everything and everybody," writes Dijkgraaf in the PNAS. “… Perhaps he understood better than most that progress stems from disagreement more than agreement.”

Freeman J. Dyson, theoretical physicist and writer, who embraced the stunning diversity of the universe with unique spirit, died on February 28, 2020 in a hospital near Princeton, NJ at the age of 96.

Dyson generated revolutionary scientific insights...

Nature has asked seven leading thinkers, including Freeman J. Dyson, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, and Alondra Nelson, Harold F. Linder Professor in the School of Social Science, to select one book from history that speaks to...

Listen to the BBC Radio 3 broadcast by Director's Visitor (2018) Sally Marlow, who interviews IAS Director Robbert Dijkgraaf, and Professors Joan Wallach Scott, Freeman J. Dyson, Nima Arkani-Hamed, and Myles W. Jackson.

"Our double task is now to preserve and foster both biological evolution as Nature designed it and cultural evolution as we invented it, trying to achieve the benefits of both, and exercising a wise restraint to limit the damage when they come into...

In her reflection on immigration and the importance of the past, Brain Pickings' Maria Popova recalls a letter written by Professor Emeritus Freeman Dyson, dated January 2, 1948, a piece of which she excerpts from his epistolary memoir Maker of...

"The whole point about science is that anything important always comes as a surprise," says Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, in an interview with the Arik Korman Show.

Hear more from Dyson on breakthroughs...

Brain Pickings' Maria Popova describes a moment of creative breakthrough from Professor Emeritus Freeman Dyson's Maker of Patterns (Liveright, 2018):

“Suddenly, in what Dyson terms a 'flash of illumination on the Greyhound bus,' everything fell into...