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Who Got Einstein's Office? Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study
 
 
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Who Got Einstein's Office? Eccentricity and Genius at the Institute for Advanced Study (Paperback)

~ Ed Regis (Author) "Princeton, New Jersey, was for many years a quiet prerevolutionary village known mainly for the Battle of Princeton, in which Washington and his men whipped..." (more)
Key Phrases: largest prime number, superstring theory, cellular automata, Freeman Dyson, John Bahcall, Fuld Hall (more...)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Regis "presents an absorbing, often amusing and scientifically demanding" study of the institute that housed 14 Nobel laureates et al. PW asserted that "this is a bravo biography of a fabulous home, sanctuary and study-hall for geniuses working at the extremes of thought." Illustrated.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal

Institutions, their personnel, and the projects of these individual are a fascinating subject. Regis has chosen to examine the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, defty following it and its faculty from germination to the present. He focuses on two of the four Institute schools, Mathematics and Natural Science, with little mention of the less famous schools of Historical Studies and Social Science. The scientific lives he narrates include revealing bits of personal information while concentrating on succinct and very readable explanations of their work and its relation to the larger scientific community. Topics range from transcendental numbers to cellular automata. Highly recommended. Michael D. Cramer, Virgina Polytechnica Inst. & State Univ. Lib., Blacksburg
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Basic Books (January 21, 1988)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0201122782
  • ISBN-13: 978-0201122787
  • Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #188,659 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #95 in  Books > Reference > Education > Research

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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars interesting book, but the author's crassness shows..., August 6, 2000
By Mayer Goldberg (Beer Sheva, Negev Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Who Got Einstein's Office offers an interesting look at Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study, the famous people that work(ed) there, as well as their work. The book seems to suggest that the tenured researchers at the Institute of Advanced Study have done their best work before they joined; That somehow at the Institute, they were isolated from a vibrant academic life, from contact with other researchers and students in their field, etc. As such, the book is definitely worth reading.

Having said that much, I feel that I should voice my indignation at the way the author depicted and presented one of the greatest lights of this century, the logician Kurt Goedel.

It's almost embarrassing to me to mention this, since Goedel's work -- profound and deep and beautiful, is what most people that remember Goedel at all remember him for. But Goedel apparently had some difficulties of an emotional and mental nature that effected his life -- from adolescence to adulthood, difficulties that the author, Ed Regis, finds the generousity to mock. In describing Goedel's relationship with his mother and the influence it had on his romantic life, Regis refers to Goedel as "Kurtele" -- a diminutive of Goedel's first name -- like turning a "Richard" into "little Dicky"... This is but an example. Regis goes to greater length to belittle Goedel and the appreciation of his work. This is beneath contempt. However bizzare and eccentric and troubled Goedel's life was, Goedel himself was its only victim. Goedel left the world precious gems of thought and changed the world of logic and mathematics forever. I think he deserves quite a bit more respect and compassion than Ed Regis afforded him.

It certainly doesn't have to be the case that if you don't respect someone you also don't understand his work. It's just ironic that the author, who refers to Goedel mockingly as "The Grand High Exalted Mystical Ruler", fails to understand even the most basic things about Goedel's work: The incompleteness result is described as "... the mathematical equivalent of the assertion that 'This statement is unprovable.'" What could be simpler? Add to this Goedel's own self-doubts, and the author now begins to wonder whether the incompleteness theorem isn't in fact a rather obvious and straightforward result.

But as the saying goes, "God is in the detail", and the author doesn't even begin to see the subtleties involved: Mathematics "talking about itself" -- Goedel numbering as a mechanism for mathematics to encode sentences about methematics, a mathematical proposition "refering to itself" -- indexicals, expessing "this" in thematics... As a consequence of "mathematics talking about itself" -- the effective computability of the provability predicate -- What Goedel did in fact is write a scanner, parser and interpreter in type theory -- all in 1931 -- twenty-something years before there were computers around, and people could write canners, parsers and interpreters for programming languages. And Goedel got them all right -- scanner, parser and interpreter -- written maticulously as recursive and primitive recursive functions. Merely envisioning these back in 1931 is a tramendous intellectual achievement.

Not having appreciated the depth of Goedel's contributions to logic, it's no wonder Regis doesn't appreciate Goedel's admirers: In describing a meeting between Rudolf Rucker and Kurt Goedel, Regis qoutes Rucker's words of appreciation of Goedel's understanding and insight into the problems he raised during their meeting: "perfect understanding", "informative laghter", ... to which Regis has to contribute: "Of course! Why not? We're not talking about talking about a man, after all, a mere mortal. We're talking about the Emperor of the Forms, the Grand High Exalted Mystical Ruler."

Well, shame on you Ed Regis!

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful history of a rare group, April 30, 2002
A fine history of The Institute For Advanced Study, endowed as a place that would "permit a haven where scholars and scientists may regard the world and its phenomena as their laboratory without being carried off in the maelstrom of the immediate. . ."

A memorable series of oral histories / stories about the interaction of some of the 20th century's most famous theoretical physicists: Niels Bohr, Einstein, Max Planck, Lorentz, de Broglie and so many others who passed through the Institute. A fascinating look into the every day lives of some of the brightest stars in physics.

You don't need to know a thing about math or physics to enjoy this fine portrait of a fascinating group of minds at work and play.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful whirlwind tour of Intellectual Disneyland., February 1, 1999
By A Customer
I borrowed this book out of curiosity, got immediately engrossed, and it has been one of the few books I've read to completion recently. I then decided that I had to own my own copy.

Ed Regis manages to present a cross section of ground breaking 20th-century thinking in mathematics, physics and astrophysics via a series of mini biographies of the Institute for Advanced Study's most illustrious characters. Given the complexity of the subjects, the author did a splendid job of providing deep technical detail in a manner the uninitiated can grasp (oh sure, there are sections that might make ones eyes glaze over, but this makes the book more interesting for more advanced readers).

A great result of this book is that it whets the appetite to learn more about certain subjects, which will benefit new and used book sellers.

Lastly, the author strikes a balance between reverence for the Institute and its members, and candor in assessing their shortcomings.

Roger Benton

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Hack and hatchet job
This in my opinion is a poorly conceived and poorly edited work, and much of it is in very bad taste (as has been noted by a few reviewers already). Read more
Published 7 months ago by Todd Trimble

2.0 out of 5 stars appallingly gushing and fawning
I confess that I only read two chapters of this book before I decided that it was all that I could take. Read more
Published on August 28, 2006 by lector avidus

5.0 out of 5 stars Very entertaining history
I'm surprised I didn't know about this book sooner. It was published in 1988 and definitely deserves to be better known. Read more
Published on June 5, 2003 by magellan

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating story of the incredible men at IAS
If you are interested in what happened in the 20th century in science, technology, and ultimately history, then you will want to know what happened at the Institute for Advanced... Read more
Published on July 17, 1999

5.0 out of 5 stars Down to earth enjoyable read about brilliant scholars
There is little I can understand about theoretical physics or much else that is pondered by the geniuses at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Read more
Published on April 5, 1999 by gregd@warwick.net

5.0 out of 5 stars I recommend this book.
A very entertaining look at the history and personalities of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, at one time or another, home to 14 or more Nobel... Read more
Published on August 23, 1998

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