G16-24022_Newsletteril_Spring2016_FINAL.qxp_Layout 1 4/29/16 10:35 AM Page 1 The Institute Letter InstituteIAS for Advanced Study Spring 2016 At the Heart of the State Unfashionable Pursuits, Leaps in the Dark, Exploring the moral world of institutions and Detecting Gravitational Waves BY DIDIER FASSIN How the recent discovery of spacetime ripples began as a risky venture oral economies represent the Mproduction, circulation, and appro- BY FREEMAN DYSON priation of values and affects regarding a given social issue. Consequently, they he Institute sometimes spends characterize for a particular historical Tmoney on risky ventures, moment and a specific social world the giving sustained support to people manner in which this issue is constituted who work on unfashionable and through judgments and sentiments that dubious projects. One example of gradually come to define a sort of common a risky venture was Einstein, who DIDIER FASSIN sense and collective understanding of the worked here for twenty years on Inside a French Tribunal de grande instance problem. Thus, one can speak of the unified field theories that never (district court): “It is to the Law that Men moral economy of asylum to characterize fulfilled his hopes. Another example Owe Justice and Liberty.” the transformations of values and affects was Joseph Weber, who worked on around the question of refugees: positively valued and emotionally charged in the the design of gravitational-wave INSTITUTE FORADVANCED STUDY 1970s and 1980s, when persecutions by Latin American and Southeast Asian detectors that failed even more Above: Member Joseph Weber, pictured at IAS in dictatorships turned them respectively into heroes or victims, the figure of the disastrously to fulfill his hopes. 1969–70, invented and constructed the first detectors of gravitational waves. Below: LIGO data plots from asylum seeker was gradually modified to make way in the 1990s for the image of Now we are celebrating the September 14, 2015, which confirm the detection of the “fake refugee,” stirring mistrust whether he or she came from the Democratic discovery of a real gravitational- the same event at LIGO observatories in Louisiana Republic of Congo or Chechnya, Bangladesh or Haiti. Obviously, it is less the wave signal emitted from a collision and Washington, proving Einstein’s prediction that objective reality of the persecutions that has evolved than the subjective approach of two massive black holes.The gravitational waves exist. The plots show how closely (Continued on page 14) discovery paradoxically proves both the data aligns with the predicted waveforms resulting from the merging of two black holes, using the Einstein and Weber to have been both equations of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. right and wrong. Einstein was right Global Health Interventions in Africa when he predicted the existence of Why past failures must inform future approaches gravitational waves, wrong when he published a paper claiming to prove BY JAMES WEBB that black holes could not exist. Weber was right when he invented istorical epidemiologists are beginning and constructed the first detectors Hto explore the documentary record of of gravitational waves, wrong when interventions in tropical Africa to prevent he claimed that his detectors had the transmission of infectious diseases and detected real gravitational signals. reduce their prevalence. Some interventions That is the way science works. against individual diseases began in the late Great scientists start new fields of nineteenth- and twentieth-century era of science by making leaps in the dark. colonialism, when Europeans founded Nature decides which of the leaps research institutes to investigate the chal- is right and which is wrong.Very lenges of tropical diseases and deployed often, as in this case, the scientists WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION The World Health Organization’s Malaria their new medical knowledge in mobile who made the leaps are dead before Eradication Program used synthetic insecti- campaigns to treat sleeping sickness, tuber- Nature pronounces her verdict. cides such as DDT as a means of disease culosis, yaws, yellow fever, onchocerciasis, The Institute can be proud that we intervention, unwittingly promoting insecti- and other diseases. In the aftermath of the supported both these great scientists COURTESY CALTECH/MIT/LIGO LABORATORY cide-resistant mosquitoes in tropical Africa. Second World War, the newly founded with their risky ventures, more than half a century before Nature proved them World Health Organization (WHO) provided expert advice to colonial and right and wrong. later independent African governments and encouraged a more global approach Joseph Weber came here three times as a visiting Member, in 1955, 1962, and to disease control. In the late twentieth century, international and bilateral organ- 1969, each time on sab batical leave from his job at the University of Maryland. izations, philanthropic organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and public- He did not fit into the standard pattern of Institute postdocs. He was not inter - private partnerships in league with African governments have undertaken ested in the fashionable topics that most of the young people were pursuing, initiatives to control diseases and to shape health systems. particle physics and statistical mechanics and quantum field theory. He never (Continued on page 11) (Continued on page 3) 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 www.ias.edu G16-24022_Newsletteril_Spring2016_FINAL.qxp_Layout 1 4/29/16 10:35 AM Page 2 News of the Institute Community Thames & Hudson has published ROBBERT DIJKGRAAF, Director of ROGER BLANDFORD, Member Matisse in the Barnes Foundation (2016), the Institute and Leon Levy Professor, (1974–75, 1998) in the School of edited by YVE-ALAIN BOIS, Professor and Co-President of the InterAcademy Natural Sciences, has received a in the School of Historical Studies. Partnership, has contributed to Doing Crafoord Prize in Astronomy from Comprised of fifty-nine works from Global Science: A Guide to Responsible the Royal Swedish Academy of every stage of the artist’s career, the Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise Sciences for his fundamental work work is a celebration of the Barnes’s (Princeton University Press, 2016). on rotating black holes and their Matisse collection. astrophysical consequences. CARMELA VIRCILLO FRANKLIN, ANGELOS CHANIOTIS, Professor in Institute Trustee and Director’s Visitor, The Royal Swedish Academy of the School of Historical Studies, was has been elected President of the Sciences has awarded a Crafoord conferred the insignia of Doctor Medieval Academy of America. Prize in Mathematics to YAKOV Honoris Causa, Faculty of Philosophy ELIASHBERG, Member (2001–02) in and Letters by the Université de Liège. ERIC SCHMIDT, Trustee of the the School of Mathematics, for the Institute, will chair the Pentagon’s development of contact and symplectic DIDIER FASSIN, James D. Wolfensohn Defense Innovation Advisory Board, topology and discoveries of rigidity Professor in the School of Social an initiative to bring the practices of and flexibility phenomena. Science, has been awarded the Gold management and innovation of Silicon Medal of the Swedish Society for Valley to the military. YOHANAN FRIEDMANN, Member Anthropology and Geography for (2002) in the School of Historical Studies, INSTITUTE FORADVANCED STUDY seminal scholarship in anthropology. has been awarded the 2016 Rothschild SEBASTIAN CURRIER, Artist-in- The Institute for Advanced Study website was Prize in the Humanities and the 2016 SABINE SCHMIDTKE, Professor in Residence, has been elected to the relaunched in April with enhanced functionality the School of Historical Studies, and American Academy of Arts and Israel Prize in Near Eastern Studies. and a clean, bold design. New features include an Ideas section that highlights Institute research; HASSAN ANSARI, Member in the Letters, an honor society of the The National Science Foundation has country’s leading architects, artists, enriched scholar profiles; and dynamic portals to School, have been named executive awarded a National Medal of Science, IAS history, news, and events. The Institute has also editors of Shii Studies Review (Brill composers, and writers. the nation’s highest scientific honor, to produced its first-ever film, which you may view at Academic Publishers) and consulting SIMON LEVIN, Member in the Schools www.ias.edu/ias-video. editors of the Encyclopaedia Iranica The Society for Classical Studies has awarded a 2015 Charles J. Goodwin of Natural Sciences (1999) and Social Board of Editors. Additionally, Science (2008–09). Schmidtke has edited the Oxford Award of Merit to JOSHUA BILLINGS, School of Social Science, with an Award Handbook of Islamic Theology (Oxford Member in the School of Historical NICHOLAS PAUL, Member (2009–10) for Excellence for A Ministry of Presence: University Press, 2016). Studies, for Genealogy of the Tragic: in the School of Historical Studies, Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care, and the Law Greek Tragedy and German Philosophy has received the Medieval Academy of (University of Chicago Press, 2014). The Académie des Sciences (Princeton University Press, 2014). America’s 2016 John Nicholas Brown d’Outre-mer has awarded the Prize for To Follow in Their Footsteps: ANDREW WILES, Member (1981, Prix Albert Bernard to GLEN The American Philosophical Associa- The Crusades and Family Memory in the 1992, 1995–2004) and Visitor (2007–11) BOWERSOCK, Professor Emeritus tion