F and I visited IAS recently: the Institute for Advanced Study. Just 15 minutes away from my childhood home, the most brilliant minds in the history of math and science have studied or visited here. It looks just as I'd expected.
The drive up from IAS was a few minutes of 25mph through huge, yet unassuming houses, I was quite familiar here in the tucked away suburbs of New Jersey, trees and grasses flourishing from our summer storms, breaking up the pattern of houses.
The corner of one street opens up to the entrance of IAS and at first, we are confused. The first building looks like a modern Japanese home, with a garden bult on the roof to catch excess rainwater and glass windows rimming the walls from top to bottom. Peering inside, we see a massive dinner table, and outside there are chairs and foldouts next to a running pool. There's a young woman in a sundress, watching as her toddle splish splashes around the edge of the mini waterfall.
Is this someone's home?
Driving along, there's a massive building: the regality of a church, without the stained glass or scripture. It signifies quite the opposite, actually: a honeycomb for science, exploration, intuition, and rigor. INstead ofa cross, there's a closk: the only thing in al the stillness to remind you that time trudges steadily forward.
Our first observation is that there aren't many people around: of course, its 7 pm on a beautiful Friday. We feel oblidged to explore as the sun sets with no urgency behind us.
Carved stepping stones persuade us through the careful clutter of buildings. I glance closer at the architecture and notice a large *INSERT IMAGE HERE* shaped cement block framing part of the building. It appears to have no purpose at all. Glass lets us see down 2 floors from our vantage point, to a large eating hall. We are surrounded by grassland, trees, forests, a lake, and emptiness for at least an acre on both sides. It is the picture of serenity. The resounding message is that of space. Space to think. Space to move. Space to breathe. Space to explore. Space to sobserve. Space to get lost. Space to ground. It exists for someone to exist. It does not ask anything from its inhabitants. It contains simple structures, both a playpace and a nook for the birightest minds to explore. I had never been in a place like this. And hours later, it reminded me of something I'd felt before. The Daylight computer.
This tablet I'm scribbling furiously on speaks to me the same way: an environment for genius. It exists to let me exist: to scrawl furiously and search around and write forever with no distractions. My writing shapeshifts from letters to drawings, making it difficult to transcribe but seamless to think.
Somehow, we ended up inside of the 'Japanese home' from the beginning. As we kept moving around the cmapus, we learned more about it's inhabitants. Poeple get to and from by bike, taking winding paths through open fields with no cars or traffic in sight. More people are here than we'd imagined ,even though it approached 8 o clock. They assembled in clusters out the 'Japanese home', ejoying cold drinks and laughter with friends and family. We kept exploring, undettered, and ventured into rooms filled with blackboards and proofs of TQFT's. They'd been written that day, by college students. F looked with awe: this was his home.