Where it All Began 11
We drew up our dream team one day in my office at home, and divided the list between us according to who was best acquainted with the invitee( leaving David Mumford for Carl who knew him well). Every single one of them accepted.
We were elated. However, the decision to adopt the greatest possible breadth in interpreting mathematical sciences was viewed with horror by some of the Fields Institute Committee members. Later, they were quick to congratulate themselves on their vision when the NSERC reviewers commented favourably on our breadth.
A Nomadic Institute
There was one final hurdle in obtaining the support of the Waterloo, McMaster, and Toronto administrations for the Fields Institute. They had decided that the Institute’ s location should rotate among the three universities every three years. This was, of course, ridiculously impractical. But since it was presented as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, we took it.
As it happened, someone from NSERC phoned me during the evaluation of the proposal to ask if we’ d mind if they made their funding conditional on finding a permanent site for the Institute. I said that if they made that a take-it-or-leave-it condition then we’ d take it. And we did.
The Institute launched its first research program in Control Theory, an area in which Jerry’ s research and mine had a considerable overlap and in which we could quickly assemble a first-rate group of participants. That program began twenty-five years ago in January 1992 and was followed by the official opening of the Institute that summer.