school, his standoffishness toward his peers gradually dissipated as the result of a growing appreciation for the natural laws, which included, at least in theory, a certain admiration for humanity in general. Although perhaps not everything that occurred in the world could be explained by reason, science at least offered a direct track to solid knowledge. And, most important, the person in possession of that knowledge—that is, a clear understanding of the laws governing the world—also possessed a power which he could then exert over other people. Francis never fully abandoned his original mistrust of others, but rather placed it in a far corner of his memory, a place he visited less and less frequently.
One morning he woke up in a most broad-minded and accepting mood. Without understanding precisely why, Francis had decided to give up theoretical mathematics, that labyrinth of abstractions and impenetrable formulae, and decided to test the slightly more solid, concrete ground of physics. This decision hardly pleased his mother, who wanted him to become an engineer, but at least it was a step closer to a world she understood. Rather than mixing and matching numbers like a schizophrenic frantically jumbling his words, his job now was to immerse himself in the basic elements of the universe: matter, light, energy. Perhaps this would be the path to satisfying his mother’s hope that he make himself useful to the world around him. Unfortunately, however, he would not be able to fulfill this maternal desire: He simply couldn’t manage to concentrate on such concrete problems. Instead of becoming a disciple of the realm of electronics, for example, Frank found himself drawn to perhaps the most experimental, fragile, and impractical branch of physics: the study of atoms and the recently unveiled quantum theory. Once again, there was nothing very tangible there. The names of the objects he analyzed—electrons, matrices, observable phenomena—were labels for a motley group of creatures as bizarre in nature as numbers.
In 1940, after several years of struggling with this discipline against the wishes of his mother and stepfather, Frank received his bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, in physics from Princeton University, having written his senior thesis on positrons. He was twenty years old and his future was filled with promise: As one of the very few specialists in his field, various state universities had extended invitations to him to conduct graduate-level research in their facilities. Three offers in particular stood out: one from the California Institute of Technology, where Oppenheimer worked; one from Princeton University, his alma mater; and one from the Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton as well. All considered, this last offer was the most tantalizing. The institute was founded in 1930 by the Bamberger brothers (owners of the eponymous Newark-based department store), but didn’t really open its doors until 1933. Unlike the graduate departments of the great American universities, the institute was unique in that it neither granted degrees nor expected its professors to carry burdensome teaching schedules. Their only job was to think, and to give occasional lectures on their chosen fields of study. It rapidly became one of the most important centers of scientific research in the entire world. Albert Einstein, who decided to remain in the United States after the Nazis won the general election in Germany, was a professor there, as were the mathematicians Kurt Gödel and John von Neumann, to mention only a handful of the more famous names.
As he walked along the ample footpaths of Princeton University on his way to visit the chairman of his department, Bacon had no idea that what he was about to do would have a decisive effect on his future. The ash trees that lined the walkways were as immobile as the columns of a temple whose roof was slowly chipping away with age. A sharp wind blurred the edges of the buildings that housed the different academic departments. The faux-medieval style of the architecture—copied directly from Cambridge and Oxford—looked even less authentic than usual in the bright sunlight. Prisoners in their uncomfortable gray suits, professors and students sought refuge inside the anachronistic buildings, escaping from the frigid air that sent their hats flying off their heads. Bacon knew the dean had summoned him to tell him something quite important, but for some reason he wasn’t nervous at all. He trusted that the path of modern science would carry him to the best possible place in the world. And anyway—this was the best part of all—he had finally made a rather big life decision, thanks to a certain telephone call he had received two days earlier from the Institute for Advanced Study.
The new dean was a short, loquacious little man who quickly ushered Bacon into his office. Seated behind a great desk that obscured a good half of his chest, the man couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting with his salt-and-pepper beard, as if trying to untangle the threads of destiny. He offered an outstretched hand to Bacon and invited him to have a seat. He then removed a folder among the many piled high upon his desk and, without looking twice at Bacon, began to read from its contents.
“Francis Bacon … of course. How could I forget a name like that? Let’s see … summa cum laude … ‘Excellent student, detailed analyses, slow at decision-making but an extraordinary theorist … In short, one of the most talented students of his generation.’ So, what do you make of all this?” he asked, in a voice which reminded Bacon of the whistle of a child’s toy locomotive. “There is nothing but praise here for you, my boy! Remarkable, truly remarkable.”
Bacon barely heard what the dean was saying; he was too busy eyeing the collection of German physics journals—Annalen der Physik, Zeitschrift für Physik, Naturwissenschaften—that lined the bookcases of the tiny office. Apart from the magazines, little glass cases and flasks were the predominant decor of this office, which seemed more like an entomologist’s laboratory than a physicist’s administrative office. Amid the disarray, Bacon spied a photograph of the dean standing next to Einstein. In the photo, the dean stood proudly beside the discoverer of relativity like a squirrel waiting anxiously to climb a sequoia tree.
“I’m very flattered, Professor.”
“I want you to know that this is not my opinion that I am sharing with you here; I am merely reading from your academic file. I would have liked to have known you better, but I guess that wasn’t meant to be, and so I can’t praise you quite as well as some of my colleagues can. Nothing to be done about that. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get to the point. I have called you here today to tell you something that you probably know better than I do.”
“I think I know what you’re about to tell me, Professor.”
“Following the recommendation of Professor Oswald Veblen, the Institute for Advanced Study has invited you to join their team.” Bacon couldn’t help cracking a smile. “Of course, we would prefer that you would remain here with us, but you have the final say in the matter. If you’d like to go off and join our neighbors, I can’t tell you not to. But I have to warn you that at the institute you will only be eligible for the title ‘assistant,’ and not ‘doctoral candidate.’ You are aware of what that means, aren’t you? Do you think, perhaps, you’d like to give it some more thought, or have you already made up your mind?”
In the beginning, the institute’s offices were housed in Find Hall, in Princeton’s mathematics department, while the money was raised to build a proper home for the organization. From 1939 on, its main offices were located in Fuld Hall, a giant red-brick box that actually looked more like a mental institution or a government building of some sort. The new headquarters allowed the institute to distance itself a bit from the university, although there was still a bit of bad blood between the two institutions. When the institute was just getting started, its director, Abraham Flexner, had promised not to invite Princeton professors to join its ranks, but Oswald Veblen and the Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann, both originally at Princeton, ultimately decided to sign on at the institute.
“I’m planning to accept the institute’s offer, Professor.”
“That’s what I thought,” said the dean.
Bacon had already carefully weighed the advantages and disadvantages of the offers he had received. He knew that at the institute he would not be granted the title of doctoral student, but he also knew that there he would have access
