There are glimpses of truths that don’t immediately make sense, that are puzzles, that we see only vaguely from a distance, or that we can see just one facet of, and they may remain puzzles for our lifetimes and several more after; we may only catch a dim impression, a shadow of what they imply.
On November 14, the Institute for Advanced Study announced
the appointment of Robbert Dijkgraaf as its ninth Director,
succeeding, as of July 1, 2012, Peter Goddard, who has served as
Director since January 2004.
I was at the Institute for the academic year 1971–72 as Research
Assistant to Clifford Geertz. This was prior to the establishment
of the School of Social Science in 1973, so the number of social
scientists was only a handful, including myself, the...
I remember fondly the two years I spent at IAS working with
Steve Adler on the experimental implications of unified field
theories of elementary particle interactions. We also tackled a
very hard problem that still is unsolved—how to reconcile...
I have spent three periods of time in residency at IAS, and I am
looking forward to a fourth in the spring of 2012. In 1979–80, one
of the first special years in mathematics at IAS took place,
organized by S. T. Yau, who shortly afterwards received...
The time I spent at the School of Social Science was an
invaluable intellectual and professional experience. As a junior
scholar, my immersion in the rich, interdisciplinary environment at
IAS definitively shaped the subsequent course of my academic...
For me, being a Member of the School of Historical Studies in
2002–03 was the best sort of retreat. I had been working on my
second book, Romulus’ Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of
Alexander to the Age of Hadrian, for five or six years when
I...
