Natural Sciences

In this public lecture, Juan Maldacena, Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, and Douglas Stanford, Member in the School of Natural Sciences, explore black holes—spacetime geometries predicted by the general theory of...

As part of Ideas: Celebrating 2017–18, Clay Cordova, Marvin L. Goldberger Member in the School of Natural Sciences, gives a talk on Topology and Physics with Charles Simonyi Professor Edward Witten.

As part of Ideas: Celebrating 2017–18, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Institute Director and Leon Levy Professor, Nicola Di Cosmo, Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies in the School of Historical Studies, Johan Heilbron, Louise and John Steffens...

On April 26, 2018, the Institute community gathered to celebrate Ideas 2017–18 with talks by IAS Members––deep ideas explained in under 20 minutes with no slides or chalk––followed by audience discussions moderated by Faculty. The program concluded...

Professor Emeritus Freeman Dyson reads from his book Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography through Letters, a collection of personal letters to relatives, written between 1940 and the late 1970s, followed by a conversation with Director and Leon Levy Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf. 

Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences, has authored Maker of Patterns: An Autobiography Through Letters (Liveright, 2018). The book is a collection of personal letters to relatives, written between 1940 and the late...

The field of cosmology has come a long way toward understanding the universe as a physical system: we’ve mapped its history and structure in great detail, we know what it went through since a few seconds after its birth until today, we understand...

How did the universe begin? What are its constituents?

In this video, James Colin Hill, Friends of the Institute Member in the School of Natural Sciences, explores these questions and discusses recent challenges and controversies that have arisen in...

Ideas that originate in particle physics have an uncanny tendency to appear in the most diverse mathematical fields. This is especially true for string theory. Its stimulating influence in mathematics will have a lasting and rewarding impact...

In 2012, Ahmed Almheiri, current Member in the School of Natural Sciences, coauthored a paper that confounded theoretical physicists, sparked attention from the New York Times to Scientific American, and prompted the organization of workshops and...