-^!ll The Institute for Advanced Si Annual Report 1981/82 The Institute for Advanced Study Annual Report for the Fiscal Year July 1, 1981-June 30, 1982 SCIENCE LtBRARY HISTORICAL STUDIES - SOCIAL ADVAHCEO STUDY THE INSTITUTE FOR 085AO PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY The Institute for Advanced Study Olden Lane Princeton, New Jersey 08540 U.S.A. Printed by Princeton University Press Designed by Bruce Campbell It is fundamental to our purpose, and our Extract from the letter addressed by the express desire, that in the appointments to Founders to the Institute's Trustees, the staff and faculty, as well as in the dated June 6, 1930, Newark, New admission of workers and students, no Jersey. account shall be taken, directly or indirectly, of race, religion or sex. 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. 9J^~^3^ Table of Contents Trustees and Officers 9 Administration 10 The Institute for Advanced Study: Background and Purpose 11 Report of the Chairman 13 Report of the Director 15 Reports of the Schools 19 School of Historical Studies 21 School of Mathematics 31 School of Natural Sciences 41 School of Social Science 55 Record of Events, 1981-82 61 Report of the Treasurer 101 Donors 110 Founders Caroline Bamberger Fuld Louis Bamberger Board of Trustees Daniel Bell James R. Houghton Professor of Sociology Vice-Chairman and Director Harvard University Corning Glass Works Thornton F. Bradshaw Howard C. Kauffmann Chairman of the Board and President Chief Executive Officer Exxon Corporation RCA John R. Opel Charles L. Brown President and Clmirman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Chief Executive Officer IBM Corporation American Telephone and Telegraph Company Howard C. Petersen Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Fletcher L. Byrom Chairman of the Board and Martin E. Segal Chief Executive Officer Partner, Wertheim & Co.; Koppers Company, Inc. Chairman, Martin E. Segal Company Gladys Krieble Delmas Zeph Stewart New York, New York Professor of Greek and Latin Harvard University }. Richardson Dilworth Princeton, New Jersey Donald B. Straus President Joseph L. Doob Research Institute of the American Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Arbitration Association University of Illinois Frank E. Taplin Sydney D. Drell President Professor of Physics Metropolitan Opera Association Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Elizabeth A. Whitehead Michael V. Forrestal Greenwich, Connecticut Lawyer New York, New York James D. Wolfensohn President Wilfried Guth James D. Wolfensohn, Inc. Managing Director Deutsche Bank AG Harry Woolf Director Ralph E. Hansmann The Institute for Advanced Study New York, New York Trustees Emeriti Lloyd K. Garrison Ira A. Schur Norton Simon Corporate Officers J. Richardson Diiworth Donald C. Jenkins Chairman Assistant Treasurer Ralph E. Hansmann John Hunt Treasurer Secretary Administration Harry Woolf, Director Aida L. La Brutte, Secretary John Hunt, Associate Director and Secretary of the Corporation Judith G. Grisham, Secretary Allen I. Rowe, Associate Director for Administration and Finance Marianne Weissenburger, Secretary Mary S. Wisnovsky, Assistant to the Director Grace Rapp, Secretary James Barbour, Manager of Administration Sabina Modzelewski, Comptroller Libraries Lily B. Agar, Historical Studies Ruth Evans, Mathematics and Natural Sciences Pat Sherr, Social Science School of Historical Studies Rose T. Murray, School Administrative Officer School of Mathematics Caroline D. Underwood, School Administrative Officer School of Natural Sciences Valerie Nowak, School Administrative Officer School of Social Science Peggy A. Clarke, School Administrative Officer The Institute for Advanced Study: Background and Purpose The Institute takes the following premises on the and a mode of operation designed specifically nature of learning as fundamental: most important to support and assist the Institute's intellec- work is the product of the disciplined and creative tual purposes in every way possible. individual mind; accordingly, the individual scholar Although the Institute is small when meas- must be responsible for how he uses the precious ured in terms of the size of its immediate ac- resources of his own time and energy; the com- ademic community or of its operaHng budget, munity of peers in his area of intellectual work is its intellectual weight is great and its influence the ultimate judge of the results. (From Proce- on science and scholarship extraordinary. From dures FOR Academic Governance of the its earliest years, it has been internationally Institute.) recognized as one of the world's leading cen- ters of research. Indeed, its successful ex- ample has created numerous imitators both The Institute for Advanced Study, an inde- in the United States and abroad. pendent, private institution devoted to the From the beginning, the Institute has been encouragement, support and patronage of an international organization, although learning, was founded in 1930 as a commu- American in location and organizational form. nity of scholars where intellectual inquiry could It has operated throughout its existence on be carried out in the most favorable circum- the premise that science and learning tran- stances. Focused on mathematics and classi- scend national boundaries and that scholars cal studies at the outset, the Institute today and scientists are members of one common- consists of the School of Historical Studies, wealth of the mind. Of the present Faculty, the School of Mathematics, the School of Nat- many have begun their scientific and schol- ural Sciences and the School of Social Science. arly careers outside the United States. One- Each School has a small permanent Faculty, third of the visiting members come from and some 160 fellowships are awarded an- abroad, mostly from the great centers of nually to visiting members from other re- learning of western Europe and Asia, and, to search institutions and universities through- a lesser extent, from other regions of the world. out the world. With its devotion to the continuing exam- The objectives of the Institute were de- ination of new and centrally important ques- scribed as follows in the Founders' original tions as they arise at the frontiers of knowl- letter to the first Trustees: "The primary pur- edge, the Institute partakes of the character pose is the pursuit of advanced learning and of both a university and a research institute, explorahon in the fields of pure science and while differing in significant ways from both. high scholarship to the utmost degree that the It is unlike a university, for instance, in its facilities of the institution and the ability of small size—its academic membership an- the faculty and students will permit." During nually numbers somewhat under 200—and in the past half-century, these goals have been the fact that it has no formal curriculum, no implemented by a Faculty of exceptional merit; scheduled courses of instruction, no commit- by an annually renewed group of visiting ment that all branches of learning be repre- members chosen from among the many who sented in its Faculty and members. It is unlike apply; and by the development of facOities the usual research institute in that it supports . 12 Background and Purpose many separate fields of study, maintains no excludes those outside it. The choice and con laboratories and determines its programs in duct of research are matters which are de terms of individual intellectual imperatives cided entirely by each individual member o rather than the collective aims of research teams the Institute. or the particular interests of potential donors. The Institute is nonetheless an intellectua For more than five decades the Institute for community and not a mere collection of schol I Advanced Study has made a substantial con- ars. Community is possible because Facult) tribution to the world of higher learning by and members have some substantial knowl providing support—intellectual and mate- edge outside their own fields of specializa . rial—to visiting members whose develop- tion. The fact that the visiting members live ment and growth constitute one of its prin- together in Institute housing, eat in the same cipal purposes. More than one third of these dining hall, share the same common room' visiting members are young men and women and libraries, and carry out their work in an, 35 years of age or less whose work at the institutional setting where human scale has' Institute involves the Faculty in a substantial been carefully maintained is conducive tc amount of postdoctoral training. Though none common interest, mutual understanding and of the visiting members is a student in the friendship. narrow sense of being a degree candidate, the The Faculty and members of the Institute communal atmosphere and many opportu- are also a part of the larger community ot nities for discussion with Faculty members Princeton, with its University and its many and peers, both within and outside seminar institutions of research and learning. Al- meetings, are propiHous to scholarly growth. though the Institute has no administrative or The Institute devotes special attention to organic connection with Princeton Univer- young people of accomplishment and prom- sity, there has always been close collaboration ise, offering them membership