John Timmer of Ars Technica reviews The Usefulness
of Useless Knowledge (Princeton University Press, March 2017)
by founding IAS Director Abraham
Flexner with a companion essay by current IAS Director Robbert Dijkgraaf. Of the book, Timmer
writes,...
Einstein’s general theory of relativity taught us that the
universe is expanding, but we have only recently discovered the
pace of that expansion and its consequences. View the video at
Business Insider as Robbert Dijkgraaf, Institute Director
and...
"Flexner makes two points that seem to me particularly important
right now, especially for policy makers thinking about higher
education in the United States. One is that it is impossible to
predict what research will turn out to be "useful" and...
“In some sense, the evidence of the usefulness of science is all
around us,” Robbert Dijkgraaf said. “It’s in our back pockets, in
our blood streams. We are governed by science—everybody is, even
the people who aren’t supportive of it. But we are...
On the face of it, usefulness seems more definable in the fields
of science, where it can be expressed in theses, discoveries,
inventions and products. But even here usefulness can be
elusive.
Mathematics might be more of an environmental science than we realize. Robbert Dijkgraaf, Director and Leon Levy Professor, explores the possibility of developing a new realm of mathematics in order to fully understand the quantum world.
"Almost every discovery has a long and precarious history.
Someone finds a bit here, another a bit there. A third step
succeeds later and thus onward till a genius pieces the bits
together and makes the decisive contribution."—from the essay
“The...
Gillian Tett of the Financial Times reviews The Usefulness of Useless
Knowledge (Princeton University Press), founding Director Abraham Flexner's influential 1939 essay
newly republished with a companion essay by Robbert Dijkgraaf, Director and
Leon...
