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Authors: John Gribbin
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eventually resigned from his German positions, although he continued to visit Europe throughout the 1930s.
JOHNNY AND THE INSTITUTE
The Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 1930, with funding from the philanthropist brother and sister Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld. They had originally intended to endow a medical school, but after being advised that there were already plenty of medical schools in the United States were persuaded to commit $5 million to set up a research institution where scholars would be free of any diversions such as teaching, and, with life tenure, any worries about the future. Mathematics was the obvious faculty to startthe venture with, since at that time mathematicians famously needed nothing more than pencil and paper to work with. The Institute operated on the basis of two terms, running from October to April either side of an extended Christmas break, and required of its academics only that they be in residence during termtime, which amounted to about half the year.
The basis for such an idyllic institution has been questioned, most notably by Richard Feynman, who wrote in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman? :
When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
But the timing was perfect, as Jewish and other scholars fleeing Nazi persecution began to look for safe havens, and the success of the Institute was assured when Albert Einstein, the most famous of these scientific refugees, was persuaded to make Princeton, rather than Caltech, his base.
Von Neumann, of course, was not a political refugee, but had already chosen to make his career in the United States. Like Einstein, he was a founding member of the IAS's School of Mathematics, which opened in 1933 and was quickly followed by Humanities in 1934 and Economics and Politics in 1935. Johnny stood out from the crowd in many ways. Always smartly dressed (often described as looking âlike a bankerâ), he had a predilection for large cars, buying a new Cadillac every year, though he was a terrible driver and often got speeding tickets. He loved to hold lavish parties, and according to his daughter, Marina, he needed only three or four hoursâ sleep a night. 4 Marina was born in 1935, but by the time she was two her parents were divorcing, although they remained on friendly terms and she saw both of them. Johnny had met another Hungarian, Klára (Klári) Dán, on his visits to Europe, and decided they were soul mates. Klári was (by her own admission) a spoiled little rich kid, born in 1911 and by 1937 nearing the end of her second marriage. The situation was complicated not just by the developing political storm (in Europe in 1938 to visit Niels Bohr's institute in Copenhagen, Johnny was struck by the fact that the trains through Germany were full of soldiers) but by the need for getting two divorces, in different countries, and fulfilling the requirements to get Klári an immigration visa for the United States. Johnny had become a US citizen in 1937, but initially retained his Hungarian citizenship as well; unfortunately, Hungarian law (to which he was subject as
JOHNNY AND THE INSTITUTE
The Institute for Advanced Study was founded in 1930, with funding from the philanthropist brother and sister Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld. They had originally intended to endow a medical school, but after being advised that there were already plenty of medical schools in the United States were persuaded to commit $5 million to set up a research institution where scholars would be free of any diversions such as teaching, and, with life tenure, any worries about the future. Mathematics was the obvious faculty to startthe venture with, since at that time mathematicians famously needed nothing more than pencil and paper to work with. The Institute operated on the basis of two terms, running from October to April either side of an extended Christmas break, and required of its academics only that they be in residence during termtime, which amounted to about half the year.
The basis for such an idyllic institution has been questioned, most notably by Richard Feynman, who wrote in his book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman? :
When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!
But the timing was perfect, as Jewish and other scholars fleeing Nazi persecution began to look for safe havens, and the success of the Institute was assured when Albert Einstein, the most famous of these scientific refugees, was persuaded to make Princeton, rather than Caltech, his base.
Von Neumann, of course, was not a political refugee, but had already chosen to make his career in the United States. Like Einstein, he was a founding member of the IAS's School of Mathematics, which opened in 1933 and was quickly followed by Humanities in 1934 and Economics and Politics in 1935. Johnny stood out from the crowd in many ways. Always smartly dressed (often described as looking âlike a bankerâ), he had a predilection for large cars, buying a new Cadillac every year, though he was a terrible driver and often got speeding tickets. He loved to hold lavish parties, and according to his daughter, Marina, he needed only three or four hoursâ sleep a night. 4 Marina was born in 1935, but by the time she was two her parents were divorcing, although they remained on friendly terms and she saw both of them. Johnny had met another Hungarian, Klára (Klári) Dán, on his visits to Europe, and decided they were soul mates. Klári was (by her own admission) a spoiled little rich kid, born in 1911 and by 1937 nearing the end of her second marriage. The situation was complicated not just by the developing political storm (in Europe in 1938 to visit Niels Bohr's institute in Copenhagen, Johnny was struck by the fact that the trains through Germany were full of soldiers) but by the need for getting two divorces, in different countries, and fulfilling the requirements to get Klári an immigration visa for the United States. Johnny had become a US citizen in 1937, but initially retained his Hungarian citizenship as well; unfortunately, Hungarian law (to which he was subject as
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