The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...

, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

Hermann Weyl Hermann Klaus Hugo Weyl, (; 9 November 1885 – 8 December 1955) was a German mathematician, theoretical physicist and philosopher. Although much of his working life was spent in Zürich, Switzerland, and then Princeton, New Jersey, he is assoc ...

John von Neumann John von Neumann (; hu, Neumann János Lajos, ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian-American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist, engineer and polymath. He was regarded as having perhaps the widest cove ...

, and

Kurt Gödel Kurt Friedrich Gödel ( , ; April 28, 1906 – January 14, 1978) was a logician, mathematician, and philosopher. Considered along with Aristotle and Gottlob Frege to be one of the most significant logicians in history, Gödel had an imme ...

, many of whom had emigrated from Europe to the United States. It was founded in 1930 by American educator

Abraham Flexner Abraham Flexner (November 13, 1866 – September 21, 1959) was an American educator, best known for his role in the 20th century reform of medical education, medical and higher education in the United States and Canada. After founding and direct ...

, together with philanthropists

Louis Bamberger Louis Bamberger (15 May 1855 – 11 March 1944) was the leading citizen of Newark, New Jersey, from the early 1900s until his death in 1944. He and his sister Caroline Bamberger Fuld co-founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Ne ...

and

Caroline Bamberger Fuld Caroline Bamberger Frank Fuld (nickname, "Carrie"; March 16, 1864 – July 18, 1944) was an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She and her brother Louis Bamberger co-founded the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Bio ...

. Despite collaborative ties and neighboring geographic location, the institute, being independent, has "no formal links" with

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. The institute does not charge tuition or fees. Flexner's guiding principle in founding the institute was the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.Jogalekar. The faculty have no classes to teach. There are no degree programs or experimental facilities at the institute. Research is never contracted or directed. It is left to each individual researcher to pursue their own goals. Established during the rise of

fascism in Europe Fascism in Europe was the set of various fascist ideologies which were practised by governments and political organisations in Europe during the 20th century. Fascism was born in Italy following World War I, and other fascist movements, influe ...

, the institute played a key role in the transfer of intellectual capital from Europe to America. It quickly earned its reputation as the pinnacle of academic and scientific life—a reputation it has retained.Reisz.Wittrock (1910). The institute consists of four schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences. The institute also has a program in

Systems Biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

. It is supported entirely by endowments, grants, and gifts. It is one of eight American mathematics institutes funded by the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

. It is the model for all ten members of the consortium

Some Institutes for Advanced Study The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The members are: * Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, ...

History

Founding

The institute was founded in 1930 by

, together with philanthropists

and

. Flexner was interested in education generally and as early as 1890 he had founded an experimental school which had no formal curriculum, exams, or grades. It was a great success at preparing students for prestigious colleges and this same philosophy would later guide him in the founding of the Institute for Advanced Study. Flexner's study of medical schools, the 1910

Flexner Report The ''Flexner Report'' is a book-length landmark report of medical education in the United States and Canada, written by Abraham Flexner and published in 1910 under the aegis of the Carnegie Foundation. Many aspects of the present-day American m ...

, played a major role in the reform of medical education. Flexner had studied European schools such as

Heidelberg University } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

All Souls College, Oxford All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...

, and the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

–and he wanted to establish a similar advanced research center in the United States. In his autobiography Abraham Flexner reports a phone call which he received in the fall of 1929 from representatives of the Bamberger siblings that led to their partnership and the eventual founding of the IAS: The Bamberger siblings wanted to use the proceeds from the sale of their

Bamberger’s Bamberger's was a department store chain with branches primarily in New Jersey and other locations in Delaware, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania. The chain was headquartered in Newark, New Jersey. History 1892–1912 Newark was known for m ...

department store in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area.New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. Flexner convinced them to put their money in the service of more abstract research. (There was a brush with near-disaster when the Bambergers pulled their money out of the market just before the

Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange colla ...

.) The eminent topologist

Oswald Veblen Oswald Veblen (June 24, 1880 – August 10, 1960) was an American mathematician, geometer and topologist, whose work found application in atomic physics and the theory of relativity. He proved the Jordan curve theorem in 1905; while this was lon ...

, who had long been trying to found a high-level research institute in mathematics, urged Flexner to locate the new institute near Princeton where it would be close to an existing center of learning and a world-class library. In 1932 Veblen resigned from Princeton and became the first professor in the new Institute for Advanced Study. He selected most of the original faculty and also helped the institute acquire land in Princeton for both the original facility and future expansion.Leitch (1995). Flexner and Veblen set out to recruit the best mathematicians and physicists they could find. The rise of fascism and the associated anti-semitism forced many prominent mathematicians to flee Europe and some, such as

Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

and

(whose wife was Jewish), found a home at the new institute. Weyl as a condition of accepting insisted that the institute also appoint the thirty-year-old Austrian-Hungarian polymath

. Indeed, the IAS became the key lifeline for scholars fleeing Europe. Einstein was Flexner's first coup and shortly after that he was followed by Veblen's brilliant student James Alexander and the wunderkind of logic

. Flexner was fortunate in the luminaries he directly recruited but also in the people that they brought along with them. Thus, by 1934 the fledgeling institute was led by six of the most prominent mathematicians in the world. In 1935 quantum physics pioneer

Wolfgang Pauli Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (; ; 25 April 1900 – 15 December 1958) was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after having been nominated by Albert Einstein, Pauli received the Nobel Prize in Physics fo ...

became a faculty member. With the opening of the Institute for Advanced Study,

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

replaced

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

as the leading center for mathematics in the twentieth century.Review
of " Alan Turing: The Enigma" By James Case,

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

, March 2, 2015.

Early years

For the six years from its opening in 1933, until Fuld Hall was finished and opened in 1939, the institute was housed within

—in Fine Hall, which housed Princeton's mathematics department. Princeton University's science departments are less than two miles away and informal ties and collaboration between the two institutions occurred from the beginning.Leitch (1978). This helped start an incorrect impression that it was part of the university, one that has never been completely eradicated. On June 4, 1930, the Bambergers wrote as follows to the institute's trustees: Bamberger's policy did not prevent racial discrimination by Princeton. When

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

mathematician William S. Claytor applied to the IAS in 1937, Princeton University said they "would not permit any colored person to go to the Institute for Advanced Study." It was not until 1939, when the institute had moved into its own building, that Veblen was able to offer Claytor a position; but this time Claytor turned it down on principle.William Waldron Schieffelin Claytor
at the

MacTutor History of Mathematics archive The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive is a website maintained by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson and hosted by the University of St Andrews in Scotland. It contains detailed biographies on many historical and contemporary mathemati ...

Albert Einstein and Abraham Flexner at the Institute for Advanced Study

Flexner had successfully assembled a faculty of unrivaled prestige in the School of Mathematics which officially opened in 1933. He sought to equal this success in the founding of schools of economics and humanities but this proved to be more difficult. The School of Humanistic Studies and the School of Economics and Politics were established in 1935. All three schools along with the office of the director moved into the newly built Fuld Hall in 1939. (Ultimately the schools of Humanistic Studies and Economics and Politics were merged into the present day School of Historical Studies established in 1949.) In the beginning, the School of Mathematics included physicists as well as mathematicians. A separate School of Natural Sciences was not established until 1966. The School of Social Science was founded in 1973.

Mission

In a 1939 essay Flexner emphasized how

James Clerk Maxwell James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and ligh ...

, driven only by a desire to know, did abstruse calculations in the field of magnetism and electricity and that these investigations led in a direct line to the entire electrical development of modern times. Citing Maxwell and other theoretical scientists such as

Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refer ...

Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic induction, ...

, Ehrlich and Einstein, Flexner said, "Throughout the whole history of science most of the really great discoveries which have ultimately proved to be beneficial to mankind have been made by men and women who were driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity." IAS Princeton

The ''IAS Bluebook'' says: This was the belief to which Flexner clung passionately, and which continues to inspire the institute today.

Impact

From the day it opened the IAS had a major impact on mathematics, physics, economic theory, and world affairs. In mathematics forty-two out of sixty-one

Fields Medalist The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

s have been affiliated with the institute. Thirty-four

Nobel Laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...

s have been working at the IAS. Of the sixteen

Abel Prize The Abel Prize ( ; no, Abelprisen ) is awarded annually by the King of Norway to one or more outstanding mathematicians. It is named after the Norwegian mathematician Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829) and directly modeled after the Nobel Prizes. ...

s awarded since the establishment of that award in 2003, nine were garnered by Institute professors or visiting scholars. Of the fifty-six

Cole Prize The Frank Nelson Cole Prize, or Cole Prize for short, is one of twenty-two prizes awarded to mathematicians by the American Mathematical Society, one for an outstanding contribution to algebra, and the other for an outstanding contribution to number ...

s awarded since the establishment of that award in 1928, thirty-nine have gone to scholars associated with the IAS at some point in their career. IAS people have won 20

Wolf Prize The Wolf Prize is an international award granted in Israel, that has been presented most years since 1978 to living scientists and artists for ''"achievements in the interest of mankind and friendly relations among people ... irrespective of natio ...

s in mathematics and physics. Its more than 6,000 former members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Pioneering work on the theory of the

stored-program computer A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms. The definition i ...

as laid down by

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

was done at the IAS by John von Neumann, and the

IAS machine The IAS machine was the first electronic computer built at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey. It is sometimes called the von Neumann machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a ...

built in the basement of the Fuld Hall from 1942 to 1951 under von Neumann's direction introduced the basic architecture of most modern digital computers.Edwards. The IAS is the leading center of research in

string theory In physics, string theory is a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. String theory describes how these strings propagate through space and interac ...

and its generalization

M-theory M-theory is a theory in physics that unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory. Edward Witten first conjectured the existence of such a theory at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995. Witten's ...

introduced by

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...

at the IAS in 1995. The

Langlands program In representation theory and algebraic number theory, the Langlands program is a web of far-reaching and influential conjectures about connections between number theory and geometry. Proposed by , it seeks to relate Galois groups in algebraic num ...

, a far-reaching approach which unites parts of geometry,

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series (m ...

, and number theory was introduced by

Robert Langlands Robert Phelan Langlands, (; born October 6, 1936) is a Canadian mathematician. He is best known as the founder of the Langlands program, a vast web of conjectures and results connecting representation theory and automorphic forms to the study o ...

, the mathematician who now occupies Albert Einstein's old office at the institute. Langlands was inspired by the work of

André Weil André Weil (; ; 6 May 1906 – 6 August 1998) was a French mathematician, known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry. He was a founding member and the ''de facto'' early leader of the mathematical Bourbaki group. Th ...

, and

Harish-Chandra Harish-Chandra Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an Indian American mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups. ...

, all scholars with wide-ranging ties to the institute, and the IAS maintains the key repository for the papers of Langlands and the Langlands program. The IAS is a main center of research for

homotopy type theory In mathematical logic and computer science, homotopy type theory (HoTT ) refers to various lines of development of intuitionistic type theory, based on the interpretation of types as objects to which the intuition of (abstract) homotopy theory a ...

, a modern approach to the foundations of mathematics which is not based on classical set theory. A special year organized by Institute professor

Vladimir Voevodsky Vladimir Alexandrovich Voevodsky (, russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Воево́дский; 4 June 1966 – 30 September 2017) was a Russian-American mathematician. His work in developing a homotopy theory for algebraic va ...

and others resulted in a benchmark book in the subject which was published by the institute in 2013. The institute is or has been the academic home of many of the best minds of their generation. Among them are James Waddell Alexander II,

Michael Atiyah Sir Michael Francis Atiyah (; 22 April 1929 – 11 January 2019) was a British-Lebanese mathematician specialising in geometry. His contributions include the Atiyah–Singer index theorem and co-founding topological K-theory. He was awarded th ...

Enrico Bombieri Enrico Bombieri (born 26 November 1940, Milan) is an Italian mathematician, known for his work in analytic number theory, Diophantine geometry, complex analysis, and group theory. Bombieri is currently Professor Emeritus in the School of Mathema ...

Shiing-Shen Chern Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...

Pierre Deligne Pierre René, Viscount Deligne (; born 3 October 1944) is a Belgian mathematician. He is best known for work on the Weil conjectures, leading to a complete proof in 1973. He is the winner of the 2013 Abel Prize, 2008 Wolf Prize, 1988 Crafoord Pr ...

Freeman J. Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum me ...

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decades. ...

Albert Hirschman Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Albert ...

George F. Kennan George Frost Kennan (February 16, 1904 – March 17, 2005) was an American diplomat and historian. He was best known as an advocate of a policy of containment of Soviet expansion during the Cold War. He lectured widely and wrote scholarly hist ...

Tsung-Dao Lee Tsung-Dao Lee (; born November 24, 1926) is a Chinese-American physicist, known for his work on parity violation, the Lee–Yang theorem, particle physics, relativistic heavy ion (RHIC) physics, nontopological solitons, and soliton star ...

Avishai Margalit Avishai Margalit ( he, אבישי מרגלית, born 1939) is an Israeli professor emeritus in philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 2006 to 2011, he served as the George F. Kennan Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study i ...

Erwin Panofsky Erwin Panofsky (March 30, 1892 in Hannover – March 14, 1968 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German-Jewish art historian, whose academic career was pursued mostly in the U.S. after the rise of the Nazi regime. Panofsky's work represents a hig ...

Atle Selberg Atle Selberg (14 June 1917 – 6 August 2007) was a Norwegian mathematician known for his work in analytic number theory and the theory of automorphic forms, and in particular for bringing them into relation with spectral theory. He was awarded t ...

Frank Wilczek Frank Anthony Wilczek (; born May 15, 1951) is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Founding Direc ...

Chen-Ning Yang Yang Chen-Ning or Chen-Ning Yang (; born 1 October 1922), also known as C. N. Yang or by the English name Frank Yang, is a Chinese Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to statistical mechanics, integrab ...

and

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathem ...

Special Year Programs

Flexner's vision of the kind of results that can emerge in an institution devoted to the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is illustrated by the "Special Year" programs sponsored by the IAS School of Mathematics. For example, in 2012–13 researchers at the IAS school of mathematics held ''A Special Year on Univalent Foundations of Mathematics''.

Intuitionistic type theory Intuitionistic type theory (also known as constructive type theory, or Martin-Löf type theory) is a type theory and an alternative foundation of mathematics. Intuitionistic type theory was created by Per Martin-Löf, a Swedish mathematician and ph ...

was created by the Swedish logician

Per Martin-Löf Per Erik Rutger Martin-Löf (; ; born 8 May 1942) is a Swedish logician, philosopher, and mathematical statistician. He is internationally renowned for his work on the foundations of probability, statistics, mathematical logic, and computer scie ...

in 1972 to serve as an alternative to set theory as a foundation for mathematics. The special year brought together researchers in

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformations, such ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

category theory Category theory is a general theory of mathematical structures and their relations that was introduced by Samuel Eilenberg and Saunders Mac Lane in the middle of the 20th century in their foundational work on algebraic topology. Nowadays, cate ...

, and

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of for ...

with the goal of formalizing and extending this theory of foundations. The program was organized by

Steve Awodey Steven M. Awodey (; born 1959) is an American mathematician and logician. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University. Biography Awodey studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Marburg and the Univ ...

Thierry Coquand Thierry Coquand (; born 18 April 1961 in Jallieu, Isère, France) is a professor in computer science at the University of Gothenburg, known for his work in constructive mathematics, especially the calculus of constructions. He received his Ph.D. u ...

and

, and resulted in a book being published in

.Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent Foundations of Mathematics
/ref> The authors—more than 30 researchers ultimately contributed to the project—noted the essential contribution of the IAS saying, One of the researchers, Andrej Bauer said, The book, informally known as ''The HoTT book'', is freely available online.

Criticism

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...

argued that the IAS does not offer real activity or challenge:

Other Institutes for Advanced Study

The IAS in Princeton is widely recognized as the world's first Institute for Advanced Study. Despite later imitators of the institute's model, it took years before any similar institutions were founded. The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford was the first such spinoff in 1954. This was followed by the National Humanities Center founded in North Carolina in 1978. These two institutions eventually became the core of a consortium known as '' Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS)''. The SIAS consortium includes the original institute in Princeton and nine other institutes founded explicitly to emulate the model of the original IAS. These ten Institutes for Advanced Study are: *

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social a ...

Stanford, California Stanford is a census-designated place (CDP) in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is the home of Stanford University. The population was 21,150 at the United States Census, 2020, 2020 census. Stanford is ...

National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

The Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities (KWI) ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...

Essen, Germany Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dor ...

Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is an independent research institute in the field of the humanities and social and behavioural sciences founded in 1970. The instit ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

(until 2016 in

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality and Dorp (town), town located in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The ...

) *

Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) is an institute for advanced study in Uppsala, Sweden. It is one of the ten member institutions of the Some Institutes for Advanced Study The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organi ...

Uppsala, Sweden Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

Berlin Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald, Berlin, Germany, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled ...

Berlin, Germany Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...

Israel Institute for Advanced Studies The Israel Institute for Advanced Studies (; IIAS, or IAS in Israel) is a research institute in Jerusalem, Israel, devoted to academic research in physics, mathematics, the life sciences, economics, and comparative religion. It is a self-governi ...

in Jerusalem, Israel *

Nantes Institute for Advanced Study Foundation Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitan ...

Nantes, France Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitan ...

* Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in Stellenbosch, South Africa * Institute for Advanced Study in

In recent years there have been other institutes loosely based on the Princeton original, in some cases established with help from IAS professors. In 1997 IAS professor

helped the Chinese set up the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (; abbreviation, abbr. THU) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China, Minis ...

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

. The

Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies The Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) is the international research college of the University of Freiburg in Freiburg, Germany. The institute was initially part of the university's proposal for funding in the Excellence Initiative in ...

Freiburg, Germany Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...

was founded in 2007, with IAS director at the time Peter Goddard giving the inaugural address.University of Freiberg: Opening ceremonial of the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies
in German Princeton IAS professors

and

Armand Borel Armand Borel (21 May 1923 – 11 August 2003) was a Swiss mathematician, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and was a permanent professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States from 1957 to 1993. He worked in alg ...

helped to establish close contacts with the

Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics (RIASM) is the Department of Mathematics of University of Madras. This name was adopted in 1967. History The University of Madras was incorporated in 1857 and the Department of Mathematic ...

, founded in 1967 as part of the

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public university, public State university (India), state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigiou ...

in India. The prestigious

Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques The Institut des hautes études scientifiques (IHÉS; English: Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies) is a French research institute supporting advanced research in mathematics and theoretical physics. It is located in Bures-sur-Yvette, jus ...

(IHÉS) founded in 1958 just south of

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

is universally acknowledged to be the French counterpart of the IAS in Princeton. Princeton Institute director

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

had a close relationship with IHÉS founder

Léon Motchane Léon Motchane (19 June 1900 – 17 January 1990) was a French industrialist and mathematician and the founder of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Bures-sur-Yvette. Biography Léon Motchane was of mixed Russian and Swiss parentage ...

and played a major role in helping to get it established. The

Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) ( ga, Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath) is a statutory independent research institute in Ireland. It was established in 1940 on the initiative of the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, in Dub ...

, which focuses on

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

, cosmic physics, and

Celtic studies Celtic studies or Celtology is the academic discipline occupied with the study of any sort of cultural output relating to the Celtic-speaking peoples (i.e. speakers of Celtic languages). This ranges from linguistics, literature and art histor ...

, was also based on the IAS, and was the second such institute when it was founded in 1940. Neither the Princeton IAS nor SIAS is connected with, and should not be confused with, the ''Consortium of Institutes of Advanced Studies'' which comprises some twenty research institutes located throughout Great Britain and Ireland. The name Institute for Advanced Study, along with the acronym IAS, is also used by various other independent institutions throughout the world, some having little to do with the Princeton model. See

Institute for Advanced Study (disambiguation) The name Institute for Advanced Study or sometimes Institute of Advanced Studies is used by various research institutions around the world. They include: Members of the consortium Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) * Institute for Advanced ...

for a complete list.

Directors, faculty and members

At any given time, the IAS has a faculty consisting of twenty-eight eminent academics who are appointed for life. Although the faculty do not teach classes (because there are none), they often do give lectures at their own initiative and have the title Professor along with the prestige associated with that title. Furthermore, they direct research and serve as the nucleus of a larger and generally younger group of scholars, whom they have the power to select and invite. Each year fellowships are awarded to about 190 visiting members from over 100 universities and research institutions who come to the institute for periods from one term to a few years. Individuals must apply to become members of the institute, and each of the schools has its own application procedures and deadlines.Institute for Advanced Study (2015): Mission and History

Campus, Lands, Olden Farm and Olden Manor

The IAS owns over 600 acres of land, most of which was acquired between 1936 and 1945. Since 1997 the institute has preserved 589 acres of woods, wetlands, and farmland. By 1936, for total of $290,000, the founding trustees of the IAS had purchased 256 acres, including the two-hundred-acre Olden Farm with Olden Manor, which was the former home of William Olden. Olden Manor, with its extensive gardens, has been, since 1940, the residence of the institute's director.

References

Bibliography

* Arntzenius, Linda G (2011)
''Institute for Advanced Study''
pub by Arcadia, Charleston, SC. * Axtell, James (2007)
''The Making of Princeton University : From Woodrow Wilson to the Present''
Princeton University Press. * Batterson, Steve (2006). ''Pursuit of Genius : Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study'', A. K. Peters, Ltd., Wellesley, MA. * Bonner, Thomas Neville (2002)
''Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a Life in Learning''
Johns Hopkins University Press. * Dyson, George (2012)
''Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe''
Pantheon Books, New York. * Edwards, Jon R. (2012)
''A History of Early Computing at Princeton''
Princeton Turing Centennial Celebration, Princeton University, May 10–12, 2012 * Feuer, Lewis Samuel (1974)
''Einstein and the Generations of Science''
Basic Books. * Flexner, Abraham (1910).
''Medical Education in the United States and Canada: A Report to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching''
Merrymount Press. OCLC 9795002 * Flexner, Abraham (1930)
''Universities : American, English, German''
Oxford Univ. Press, New York, OCLC 238820218 * Flexner, Abraham (1939)
''The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge''
Harpers Magazine, Issue 179, June/November 1939 * Flexner, Abraham (1960)
''Abraham Flexner : An Autobiography''
Simon and Schuster, New York. OCLC 14616573 * Freiberger, Marianne (2011).
Review of ''Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study''
The Mathematical Intelligencer * Frenkel, Edward (2015)
''Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality''
Basic Books, New York, * Grattan-Guinness, Ivor (2003)
''Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences''
volume 2, The Johns Hopkins University Press. * Gunderman, Richard B.; Gascoine, Kelly; Hafferty, Frederic W.; Kanter, Steven L. (2010)
''A "paradise for scholars": Flexner and the Institute for Advanced Study''
Academic Medicine : Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, November 2010; 85(11): 1784-9
Institute for Advanced Study (1940). Bulletin No. 9 : ''History And Organization''
* * * * * Jogalekar, Ashutoshon (2013)
''Ich probiere: Revisiting Abraham Flexners dream of the useful pursuit of useless knowledge''
Scientific American, December 12, 2013 * Leitch, Alexander (1978)

in A Princeton Companion, Princeton University Press * Leitch, Alexander (1995)

in A Princeton Companion, Princeton University Press * Nasar, Sylvia (1998)
''A beautiful mind : a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr.''
Simon & Schuster, New York, * Nevins, Michael (2010)
''Abraham Flexner: A Flawed American Icon''
iUniverse Inc., *Britta Padberg (2020). ''The Global Diversity of Institutes for Advanced Study'', Sociologica, vol.14, no.1 (2020) * Pais, Abraham & Crease, Robert P. J
''Robert Oppenheimer: A Life''
Oxford University Press, New York. * Pasachoff, Naomi (1992). ''Science's 'Intellectual Hotel' : The Institute for Advanced Study'', Encyclopædia Britannica Yearbook of Science and the Future. * Regis, Ed (1987)
''Who Got Einstein's Office: Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study''
Addison-Wesley, Reading. * Reisz, Matthew (2008).
''The perfect brainstorm''

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

, March 20, 2008 * Scott, Joan Wallach & Keates, Debra, eds (2001). ''Schools of Thought : Twenty-five Years of Interpretive Social Science'', Princeton University Press. A collection of reflective pieces by former fellows at the Institute for Advanced Study School for Social Science. * Villani, Cédric (2015)
''Birth of a Theorem : A Mathematical Adventure''
Faber and Faber. * Wittrock, Björn (1910)
''A brief history of institutes for advanced study''

External links

*
"Institute for Advanced Study"
a historical overview of the Institute published on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding {{Coord, 40, 19, 54, N, 74, 40, 04, W, type:landmark, display=title Schools in Princeton, New Jersey National Science Foundation mathematical sciences institutes 1930 establishments in New Jersey Theoretical physics institutes

History

Founding

Early years

Mission

Impact

Special Year Programs

Criticism

Other Institutes for Advanced Study

Directors, faculty and members

Campus, Lands, Olden Farm and Olden Manor

See also

References

Bibliography

External links