Murray Gell-Mann, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on elementary particles (see Page 24 in this issue), was one of the originators of the Santa Fe Institute, an interdisciplinary research center in New Mexico that is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. Gell-Mann recently addressed a group of about 150 high school students gathered at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., for Adventures of the Mind, a biennial summit for academically outstanding 15- to 18-year-olds. Gell-Mann described the origins of and philosophy behind the Santa Fe Institute’s approach to science. Tom Siegfried, Science News’ editor in chief, excerpted Gell-Mann’s remarks.
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A group of us who were connected with the government lab at Los Alamos, either as consultants or employees, 27 or 28 years ago, used to meet and talk about starting a theoretical institute. The place we wanted it to be was Santa Fe…. We thought it would be an ideal location. People sometimes ask why we didn’t set it up across the street from Harvard or Stanford or Berkeley, and I think actually it was a good idea not to do that. Because of the pressure of received ideas. If you say something new at Harvard, you will get a lot of discouraging responses: “I already did that and decided it was wrong.” “That’s been considered carefully by lots of people and it doesn’t show any promise.” …