With Freeman Dyson Interviewer: Masataka Fukugita
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Interview with Freeman Dyson Interviewer: Masataka Fukugita Freeman Dyson visited the Kavli IPMU at Kashiwa from 15th to 19th of April, 2014, and at Kamioka from 20th to 22nd. Masataka Fukugita organized a special Q&A session with Freeman Dyson on 17th of April for 4 hours. This document excerpts this session, supplemented by an additional interview on 18th and another Q&A session held at Kamioka on 22nd. Fukugita: You were an advisor to the King. educated at the William of Wykeham was Winchester College. Would a capable administrator. you tell us about this He founded 6 foundations, legendary college? including New College Dyson: Winchester in Oxford. Students College was founded 650 are allowed to enter years ago by William of Winchester College at Wykeham, a Bishop of age 12 after a tough, very the Catholic Church and competitive competition. Freeman Dyson was educated as a professor emeritus) for 60 years. from 12 to 17 years of age at He has just passed 90 years of age, Winchester College, a famous but still actively engaged in science. elite high school of England. He During his long research life he then went to the mathematics has worked on an amazing variety department of Cambridge University, of subjects, often two or more where he was supervised by Abram subjects at the same time. Starting Samoilovitch Besicovitch. Afterwards with number theory, the subjects he he worked for the Royal Air Force, worked on include: while WWII was raging. A year Quantum electrodynamics – after the war ended he returned to foundations of quantum eld theory; Cambridge, and gradually switched Statistical mechanics and solid- to theoretical physics. He then went state physics; to Cornell University and worked Random matrices; under Hans Bethe. He visited the Stability of matter; Institute for Advanced Study in 1948, Adaptive optics; where his great work for QED was Nuclear engineering, nuclear completed. Quantum eld theory power as space propulsion; we learn today is the formulation Model for the origin of life; thanks to Dyson. His work serves as Time variation of the physical the best example of a mathematical constants; mind clearing up the mess of physics Carbon dioxide problem, to create a beautiful theory. He and also some others. was appointed as a professor at Now he is working on game Cornell University in 1951, and then theory, prisoner’s dilemma, besides invited as a professor in the School graviton detection, which was of Mathematics of the Institute for presented in his colloquia on the Advanced Study in Princeton in 1953, 16th of April at Kashiwa and on the where he served as a professor (now 21st at Kamioka. 22 Kavli IPMU News No. 26 June 2014 The exam is for ten or cooling. Education is subjects, including Latin carried on in a very free and Greek. There were style. In the top form we two for mathematics, one were in class only for pure math and the other 7 hours a week. So we applied math. The exam found ample time to learn also includes a modern whatever we wanted. language. My father was a Fukugita: Have you teacher at this college, so decided to be a I was already familiar with mathematician from it as a college brat from the time of Winchester the age of 3. The number College? of students is 70, 15 each Dyson: No. I was much year, boys only. This has younger. Mathematics not been changed until was born in me. I loved now. The college is still numbers and very much ourishing the same way enjoyed calculating from as in the old days. I still visit the time I was around it frequently. 3 years old. This is the The graduates are not same as with musicians necessarily academic; some who start playing piano become bankers and some at age 3. It is the same go to government ofces. for mathematics. I knew England is a very class that mathematics was divided society, commercial what I can do best. I was middle class for business already determined to be people and academic a mathematician when I middle class including entered the College at age university and government 12. people, and there is an In the college I found antagonism between “Cours d’Analyse” by them. We, the academic Camille Jordan in the middle class, considered library. It consists of 3 fat ourselves the top students volumes, containing the in the school and looked whole of 19th century down on the others. That mathematics. It is a classic tradition was intact, until work, written around 1900 Margaret Thatcher took and used in École Normale her revenge, putting the in France as a text book. commercial middle class It was a miracle that this rmly in power. book was in the library. We lived in the same building originally built in Masataka Fukugita is professor Interview . at the Kavli IPMU. He served as a the 14th century It has principal investigator at IPMU from thick walls, cool in summer October 2007 to March 2012. He is also a part-time member of School and warm in winter. It is of Natural Science of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton comfortable to live there, since 1988. So, he has got along not much need for heating with Freeman Dyson over 25 years. 23 My fellow classmate James It was a very lucky time to but to do two new subjects this was the cause of the Lighthill, who became a be a student. instead: molecular biology Japanese surrender, and famous mathematician, I was a student of and radio astronomy. so we were told. I recently discovered this book in the Besicovitch, expert on Martin Ryle brought read the book by historian library, and we both read measure theory. He came military radar equipment Hasegawa who claims that and talked about it. from Russia, spoke English and started receiving the real reason for the G.H. Hardy was with a very strong Russian signals from the sky. For surrender of Japan was already an old man in accent. Besicovitch gave radio-astronomy, English not the atomic bombs but Cambridge and the most me problems to work on. I weather doesn’t matter, the invasion of the Soviet famous mathematician liked the Russian language, whether it is cloudy or army from the north. Japan in England. He had been so we spoke in Russian. raining. He immediately could not defend against at Winchester College as We often went for long made great discoveries. Russians from the north a boy 40 years earlier. In walks in Cambridge, and In the molecular biology and Americans from the his autobiography“ Cours while doing so were not group Max Perutz and south. So the Japanese d’Analyse” appears, and allowed to speak English. John Kendrew became generals thought that it I strongly suspect that I was inuenced by the leaders. Both were was better to surrender to it was he who brought Besicovitch style: it is enormously successful and Americans, while keeping this book to Winchester architecture. Besicovitch Cambridge became the Russians out, using the College. I cannot imagine had the ability to build world leader in both the atomic bomb as an excuse anybody else bringing beautiful structures from two subjects introduced by for their dishonorable it. Unfortunately, I never simple components, Bragg. surrender. Now I agree asked him about this. which were used in his After two years at with Hasegawa and wish Fukugita: Then you went mathematical proofs. I Cambridge, I worked that we had not dropped to Cambridge? have used the same style for the Royal Air Force the bomb on Hiroshima. Dyson: In 1941 I came to for my calculations in (1943-1945). It was a The bomb was not as Cambridge. I entered the physics. grim time of the war. I important as we believed. mathematics department. After Rutherford died was a civilian scientist Fukugita: Cambridge Mathematics and in 1937 physics was at a at the headquarters of is the great place for physics were separate low ebb in Cambridge. In RAF Bomber Command, mathematical physics, with departments. Physics was physics, the only professor collecting information Newton, Maxwell and then still called Natural was Dirac. Dirac did not about the strategic Dirac. You were following Philosophy. Mathematics interact with anybody. bombing of Germany. in their footsteps. Why is was considered by the Eddington was also there, After the bombing of Cambridge so successful? physicists to be a French he was an astronomer. Germany stopped in April Dyson: The image is disease. We did not count him as a 1945, we still had a huge presented to school It was in the middle of physicist. bomber force. I would children that each country the war. There were very At the time I was there, have own to Okinawa, is good at one special few students in the class. Lawrence Bragg was in in order to bomb Japan thing: music in Germany, The others were ghting charge of the physics from there, but the war painting in France, and in the war. Lectures were department. He succeeded ended in August; so we England it is science. This given by Hardy, John Rutherford. Bragg said: did not need to bomb provokes gifted young E. Littlewood, Abram “Rutherford was the best any more. It was a great children in England to go Samoilovitch Besicovitch, physicist in the world and relief. We did not need to Cambridge and become but students were only I am not: so we should to kill more people. We scientists. The tendency a few.