princeton-university-alumni

"The importance of the creation of the zero mark can never be exaggerated. This giving to airy nothing, not merely a local habitation and a name, a picture, a symbol but helpful power, is the characteristic of the Hindu race from whence it sprang. It is like coining the Nirvana into dynamos. No single mathematical creation has been more potent for the general on-go of intelligence and power.’"

"The spectacular results in the fluctuation theory of sums of independent random variables, obtained in the last 15 years by , , , , , , and others, have gradually led to the realization that the nature of the problem, as well as that of the methods of solution, is algebraic and combinatorial. After Baxter showed that the crux of the problem lay in simplifying a certain operator identity, several algebraic proofs (, , Wendel) followed. It is the present purpose to carry this algebraization to the limit: the result we present amounts to a solution of the for s. The solution is not presented as an algorithm, but by showing that every identity in a Baxter algebra is effectively equivalent to an identity of symmetric functions independent of the number of variables. Remarkably, the identities used so far in the combinatorics of fluctuation theory "translate" by the present method into classical identities of easy verification. The present method is nevertheless also useful for guessing and proving new combinatorial identities: by way of example, it will be shown in the second part of this note how it leads to a generalization of the Bohnenblust-Spitzer formula for the action of arbitrary ."

"The more experimental scientists and s are, the more common sense they have, and so on until you get to the mathematicians, who are totally devoid of common sense."

"It cannot be a complete coincidence that several outstanding logicians of the twentieth century found shelter in s at some time in their lives: Cantor, , Gödel, Peano, and are some. was one of the saner among them, though in some ways his behavior must be classified as strange, even by mathematicians' standards. He looked like a cross between a and a large owl. He spoke softly in complete paragraphs which seemed to have been read out of a book, evenly and slowly enunciated, as by a . When interrupted, he would pause for an uncomfortably long period to recover the thread of the argument. He never made casual remarks: they did not belong in the baggage of ."

"It has been observed that whereas s and s are likely to be embarrassed by references to the beauty in their work, mathematicians instead like to engage in discussions of the beauty of mathematics. Professional artists are more likely to stress the technical rather than the aesthetic aspects of their work. Mathematicians, instead, are fond of passing judgment on the beauty of their favored pieces of mathematics. Even a cursory observation shows that the characteristics of mathematical beauty are at variance with those of artistic beauty. For example, courses in “art appreciation” are fairly common; it is however unthinkable to find any “mathematical beauty appreciation” courses taught anywhere. The purpose of the present paper is to try to uncover the sense of the term “beauty” as it is currently used by mathematicians."

"Maria had a little sheep As pale as rime its hair, And all the places Maria came The sheep did tail her there; In Maria's class it came at last, A sheep can't enter there; It made the children clap their hands, A sheep in class, that's rare."

"New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities — in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East."

"The narrative was too constricted; it was like a fetus strangling on its own umbilical cord."

"Stanley claims that the world is divided up into two kinds of people – those who look at their body waste in the toilet bowl, and those who don’t."

"Beating up on screenwriters is a Hollywood blood sport; everyone in the business thinks he or she can write, if only time could be found. That writers find the time is evidence of their inferior position on the food chain. In the Industry, they are regarded as chronic malcontents, overpaid and undertalented, the Hollywood version of Hessians, measuring their worth in dollars, since ownership of their words belongs to those who hire and fire them."

"I had been exposed to the motion picture industry at oblique angles ever since I arrived in Los Angeles in 1964, and some of its working arrangements seemed to me far more magical than that glamour for which the Industry was noted: there was the way in which failure escalated the possibilities of success, the way in which price bore no relation to demand. There was the way in which millions of dollars were gambled on ephemeral, unpredictable and, uncomfortably often, invalid ideas of marketability. There was the way that many, perhaps most, people in the Industry remained unconscious of their own myths and superstitions. There was the Eldorado mood of life in the capital, the way in which social and economic fortunes could shoot up or plummet down, as in a mining boom town, on no more than rumors, the hint of a rich vein, the gossip that the lode was played out."

"It deserves to be mentioned here that one purpose of these huge fees is to establish respect; in the constitution of Hollywood, a million-dollar director has half a million dollars more respect than a $500,000 director. This is why the Eleventh Commandment of a motion picture negotiation is Thou shalt not take less than thy last deal. Everyone knows what everyone else makes (this information is passed around like popcorn at a movie), and the person who violates this Eleventh Commandment is seen not as a model of restraint and moderation but as a plain goddamn fool."

"Hollywood is a technological crapshoot."

"What is astonishing about the social history of the Vietnam War is not how many people avoided it, but how many could not and did not."

"A writer is an eternal outsider, his nose pressed against whatever window on the other side of which he sees his material. Resentment sharpens his eye, hostility hones his killer instinct."

"The insatiable appetites of instant communication have necessitated a whole new set of media ground rules, pedicated not only on the recording of fact but also on the projection of glamour and image and promise. The result of this cultural nymphomania is that we have become a nation of ten-minute celebrities. People, issues and causes hit the charts like rock groups, and with approximately as much staying power."

"Anecdotes are factoids of questionable provenance, burnished to a high gloss, often set in gilded venues and populated with familiar names as background atmosphere, purged of ambiguity in the interest of keeping the narrative flowing smoothly."

"Writing is a manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe."

"I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge."

"There are no new facts about the Kennedys, only new attitudes, a literature that, like the automobile industry, puts new bodies on old chassis. ... Conspiracy is a small but durable seller, retooled every year or so."

"Membership in the closed society of the motion picture industry is almost never revoked for moral failings."

"suffers from the drawback that it cannot with certainty distinguish between resemblances due to genetic affinity, on the other hand, and those which are the results of convergence or parallelism, on the other, and it possesses no trustworthy criterion, by which it can test the taxonomic significance of structural characters."

"The day has gone forever gone by when any one mind, however profound and comprehensive, can take all knowledge for its province. Increase of knowledge, like advance of civilization, necessarily brings with it a division of labor, and each of the great branches of science becomes more and more minutely divided and subdivided for the purposes of investigation. Such subdivision greatly enhances the efficiency of the individual worker, enabling him to concentrate his attention upon some problem of more or less limited scope, and, so far, it is advantageous. On the other hand, like most human devices, it has its drawbacks, and what is gained in one direction is apt to be lost in another. One great and growing evil is the subdiviision of knowledge which accompanies specialization of research."

"Only two or three years ago an expedition from the discovered a place in Wyoming where the lie directly upon those of the , thus fully confirming the inference as to the relative age of the two s which had long ago been drawn from the comparative study of their fossil mammals. The palæontological method of determining the geological date of the stratified rocks is thus an indispensable means of correlating the scattered exposures of the strata in widely separated regions and in different continents, it may be with thousands of miles of intervening ocean. The general principle employed is that close similarity of fossils in the rocks of the regions compared points to an approximately contemporaneous date of formation of those rocks. The principal must not, however, be applied in an offhand or uncritical manner, or it will lead to serious error."

"Among Scott's outstanding contributions to the study of evolution were two memoirs, both published in 1891, the first on ' and the second on ' and '. Besides the descriptive parts of these papers, the first included a list of what Scott considered the most important questions regarding evolution and the second attempted to answer these questions from the paleontological point of view."

"I didn’t know what my life would look like as a black postdoc or faculty member."

"I looked to the women such as my mother who had had academic careers, and tried to think about how I could shape my life to look something like that, and I realized that it could be something I could make work."

"Since I started working in high energy physics it certainly hasn't been lonely and there haven't been a lack of female role models."

"Black women are a different story. But there were minority women working at the Fermilab experiments whom I was very happy to see. And at the ATLAS experiment there are a noticeable fraction of African descent. So I think things are improving because, historically, all of the icons in our field have been white men."

"Evolution is a scientific question on the biological level; it would be unfortunate indeed if a scientific question were permitted to become the crucial point for Christian faith."

"We believe in Creation. We praise the Lord for that faith. But let us avoid either posing creation and evolution as intrinsically antithetical alternatives, the acceptance of one demanding the rejection of the other, or presenting creation as a scientific mechanism alternative to evolution, as though good science must ultimately lead to the verification of fiat creation and a falsification of evolution."

"The human senses are tools of science in studying the natural world. If you can see it, hear it, feel, taste, or smell it, then science can’t work with it. This isn’t meant superficially, for scientists have developed a great variety of instruments that extend the capabilities of science far beyond the unaided senses. But even with the most subtle of instruments, the link between instrument and scientist is in the form of a meter needle whose location is seen, a photographic record or computer tape that can be read, or an audible signal that can be heard."

"If it is assumed, without due Scriptural support, that the purpose of revelation is to give mankind a source-book of information on all phases of physical, mental, spiritual, sociological, artistic, and scientific life — a source-book which must have meaning for the people to whom it was addressed and to all the generations coming after them in spite of the changes which are continuously occurring — then we have the greatest difficulty in maintaining the doctrine of an inerrant Scripture. If, on this stand, we adopt the position of “arbitrary inerrancy,” we essentially jeopardize the whole truth of Christianity by attempting to balance the great wealth and weight of God’s revelation in Christ upon our ability to show that the words of Scripture can be judged inerrant even when we examine them on the basis of criteria they were not written to satisfy. How much of liberalism and rejection of Biblical revelation has been precipitated as a blind reaction against such a stand!"

"Although ' seems to work as a memorable , it can mislead. The book is not about implicit trust, but reluctance and hesitation. Numbers that appear sufficiently routine may pass under the radar, but when conflicting interests are at stake, they are readily challenged. They often require . This typically involves putting aside deep meanings and convictions in favor of compromise and convention. The title came to me in reaction to my editor's suggestion of "Truth in Numbers," which I rejected at once."

"The systematic study of social numbers in the spirit of natural philosophy was pioneered during the 1660s, and was known for about a century and a half as political arithmetic. Its purpose, when not confined to the calculation of insurance or rates, was the promotion of sound, well-informed state policy. ... , who invented the phrase "political arithmetic" and is thought by many to have had a hand in the composition of 's work, was in full accord with his friend as to the purpose of these studies. Political arithmetic was, in his view, the application of Baconian principles to the art of government."

"Beginning in 1892, when he took up statistics as his scientific vocation, Karl Pearson devoted himself relentlessly to a project of almost universal quantification. This work, the invention of a , defined one of the landmark transitions in the history of the sciences, or indeed of public rationality."

"A bitter debate in the early twentieth century between "biometricians" and "Mendelians" about how best to study seemed to end in a victory for genetics, defined by a focus on discrete nuggets of hereditary causation for which in 1909 coined the term "." The new genetics emphasized , , and s. Despite geneticists' intense engagement with eugenics and medicine, Homo sapiens was not their preferred organism. It was too resistant to laboratory manipulation and had too long a generation time in comparison to , s, and viruses."

"Our scientific culture, and much of our public life, is based on trust in numbers. They are commonly accepted as the means to achieving objectivity in analysis, certainty in conclusions, and truth. Numbers tell us about the health of our society (as in the rates of occurrence of unwanted behavior), and they provide a demarcation between what is accepted as safe and what is believed to be dangerous. In Trust in Numbers, Theodore Porter ... unpacks this assumption and uses history to show how such a trust may sometimes be based less on the solidity of the numbers themselves than on the needs of expert and client communities. ... Porter is to be congratulated for showing how intimate can be the mixture of , real and pseudo-quantification, awareness and self-deception, and vision and fantasy, in the invocation of trust in numbers. His historical insights can provide the materials we need for a debate on quality in quantities, a debate which is long overdue."

"...Even in the most intimate forms of writing, people still followed established conventions and wrote what they felt was expected of them. They could lie to their friends and family, even to themselves."

"Ideas do not have force outside specific social contexts. The same ideas may have enormous force in one context and look bizarre or repulsive in another."

"My father taught history at Calcutta University but he had so many diverse interests. He was also a film critic, a theatre critic, and he sang very well. He wrote poems and novels, but he did it in a way that was rather wonderful: he'd suddenly say, ‘oh I wrote this poem yesterday’ or he would say, ‘oh by the way, I'm going to be in this play’. There was this sense that you can just do what you want to do."

"... during the past 20–30 years, the subject of has—as a result of advances in measurement technologies—been transformed from a chiefly theoretical endeavor that explored beautiful theorems, involving the and equations, to an experimental science—a science that has come of age as one can now make real-time measurements at the levels at which geophysical happenings are taking place. And absolute gravimetry (along with very long baseline interferometry, global positioning satellites, satellite ranging, etc.) was and is contributing to this revolution."

"A hundred years ago our view of space and time was dramatically changed by the introduction of special relativity. Ten years after that, Einstein made spacetime dynamical in his general theory of relativity. It has long been expected that quantum gravity will require an even more radical change in our view of spacetime. String theory is a promising approach to a consistent quantum theory of gravity. In the past few decades a new picture of spacetime has been emerging from this theory. While this picture is far from complete, it is already clear that spacetime has many different features than it does in relativity."

"At first sight, the problem of constructing a quantum theory of gravity sounds easy since there are no experimental constraints! The task is simply to find any theory which unifies general relativity and quantum theory. However, on second thought, the problem sounds extremely difficult. General relativity teaches us that gravity is just a manifestation of the curvature of space and time. So quantum gravity must involve the quantization of space and time, something we have no previous experience with. Surprisingly, even though there are no experimental constraints, this is a constraint on quantum gravity which was found in the early 1970’s by studying black holes. Motivated by the close analogy between the laws of black hole mechanics and ordinary thermodynamics, Bekenstein proposed that ..."

"Ten years ago, it was common (and correct) to distinguish the two main approaches to by saying that string theory ... was perturbative, and background dependent while the other approach ... was non-perturbative and background independent. In light of this, it is not surprising that most relativists were not interested in string theory. … One of the main things that has changed over the past decade is that we now know that string theory does not just involve strings. Higher (and lower) dimensional objects (called s) play an equally fundamental role. Using these branes, convincing evidence has been accumulated that all five of the perturbative string theories are just different limits of the same theory, called . (There is no agreement about what the M stands for.) There is yet another limit in which M theory reduces to eleven dimensional ."

"One should mention right at the start that one still does not understand whether quantum mechanics and special relativity are compatible at a fundamental level in our Minkowski four-space world. One generally assumes that this means finding a complete Yang-Mills gauge theory or the interaction of gauge fields with fermionic matter fields, the simplest form being quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Associated with this picture is the belief that the fundamental vector meson excitations are massive (as opposed to photons, which arise in the limiting case of an abelian gauge symmetry. The proof of the existence of a “mass gap” appears a necessary integral part of solving the entire puzzle. This question remains one of the deepest open issues in theoretical physics, as well as in mathematics. Basically the question remains: can one give a mathematical foundation to the theory of fields in four-dimensions? In other words, can do quantum mechanics and special relativity lie on the same footing as the classical physics of Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, or Schrödinger—all of which fits into a mathematical framework that we describe as the language of physics. This glaring gap in our fundamental knowledge even dwarfs questions of whether there are other more complicated and sophisticated approaches to physics—those that incorporate gravity, strings, or branes—for understanding their fundamental significance lies far in the future. In fact, one believes that stringy proposals, if they can be fully implemented, have limiting cases that appear as relativistic quantum fields, just as relativistic quantum fields describe non-relativistic quantum theory and classical physics in various limiting cases."

"He was passionate about JILA and the future of JILA. He was a strong advocate for hiring [a leading researcher in ]. He had a great sense of the qualitative understanding of a lot of physics, especially . I remember talking to him about the design of an experiment and him having good suggestions. He was a big advocate for the instrument shop. I think part of it is because he admired those guys for building and designing things."

"Most physicists will remember Jim Faller for his contributions to ."

"Determinations of the fit into the oftentimes-unappreciated area of physics called precision measurement—an area which includes precision measurements, and . The determination of big G—a measurement which on the surface appears deceptively simple—continues to be one of 's greatest challenges to the skills and cunning of s. In spite of the fact that, on the scale of the Universe, big G's effects are so large as to single-handedly hold everything together, on the scale of an individual research laboratory, big G's effects are so small that they go unnoticed…hidden in a background of much larger forces and noise sources. It is this ‘smallness’ that makes determining the precise value of this (seemingly unrelated to the rest of physics) fundamental constant so difficult."

"Huge and alert, irascible yet strong, We make our fitful way 'mid right and wrong. One time we pour out millions to be free, Then rashly sweep an empire from the sea! One time we strike the shackles from the slaves, And then, quiescent, we are ruled by knaves. Often we rudely break restraining bars, And confidently reach out toward the stars."