Ideas

Fields Medalist Maryam Mirzakhani, former Member in the School of Mathematics, gives the second of three 2012 Marston Morse Lectures on Dynamics on the Moduli Spaces of Curves.

Fields Medalist Maryam Mirzakhani, former Member in the School of Mathematics, gives the first of three 2012 Marston Morse Lectures on Dynamics on the Moduli Spaces of Curves.

The history of digital computing can be divided into an Old Testament whose prophets, led by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, supplied the logic, and a New Testament whose prophets, led by John von Neumann, built the machines. Alan Turing, whose “On...

In this talk, Paul Steinhardt, a frequent Member in the School of Natural Sciences, describes the search for the first natural quasicrystals. Steinhardt is Albert Einstein Professor in Science and Director of the Center for Theoretical Science at...

Prior to the Terror (1793--94), the French Revolution was generally viewed very positively by progressive constitutional thinkers and law reformers. On November 18, 1792, more than a hundred distinguished Anglo-American democrats, including several...

The idea of trespassing is basic to my thinking. Attempts to confine me to a specific area make me unhappy. When it seems that an idea can be verified in another field, then I am happy to venture in this direction. I believe this is a simple and...

One of the oldest subjects in mathematics is the study of Diophantine equations, i.e., the study of whole number (or fractional) solutions to polynomial equations. It remains one of the most active areas of mathematics today. Perhaps the most basic...

Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies, has edited Unveiling Emotions: Sources and Methods for the Study of Emotions in the Greek World (Franz Steiner Verlag, 2012). The volume presents the first results of research...

The Electronic Computer Project (ECP) that was based at the Institute from 1945 to 1957 produced one of the world’s first large computers, and the very first with a stored-program design. 

The project was led by IAS Professor John von Neumann, who...

Didier Fassin, James D. Wolfensohn Professor in the School of Social Science, has authored Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present (University of California Press, 2011), which draws on case materials from France, South Africa, Venezuela...