In Search of Klingsor

At first, it wasn’t such a terrible thing to discover that his name was not so original. He was consoled, in fact, by all the Johns and Marys and Roberts he saw. His mother’s second husband was called Tobias Smith, and he didn’t seem at all troubled by the fact that he had to share his name with thousands of his compatriots. But the taunts were what bothered Frank the most: “Bet you think you’re some kind of genius, don’t you, Mr. Bacon?” they asked. He did; that was the worst thing of all. Who would ever believe that there could be another brilliant scientist named Francis Bacon? The first coincidence seemed to make the second one virtually impossible. He tried defending himself by proving to everyone how talented he was, but the arrogance with which he presented his results only elicited bouts of laughter from his teachers. It was as if they thought his intellectual abilities were nothing more than an anomaly or an eccentricity rather than true genius. In any event, they never failed to compare him with the “real” Bacon, as if he were nothing more than the unfortunate, apocryphal copy of a long-dead original.

Bacon’s childhood and adolescence were lonely. Hypersensitive about the qualities that set him apart from the other children, he recoiled from all human contact apart from the unavoidable. He was hardly the easiest person to live with, either, due to the persistent migraines that plagued him, sending him into nearly catatonic states in which the slightest bit of light or noise was all but unbearable. He would spend hours on end locked away in his room, dreaming up formulas and theorems until his stepfather would knock on his door, practically dragging him downstairs to supper. By this point, his mother almost regretted ever having taught him how to count: Not only had he become intransigent and rude, but he also was increasingly intolerant of anyone less intelligent than he.

The hateful games people played at his expense gradually receded from his thoughts and he found himself more and more captivated by the English scientist who had caused all the trouble to begin with. He needed to know who that fateful ancestor was, the person whose mere name had made his life a living hell. With the same dedication of a teenager who inspects himself in the mirror day after day for the most infinitesimal signs of his metamorphosis into adulthood, Francis doggedly pursued his namesake. To avoid the displeasure of reading his name in print over and over again (since it always referred to someone else), Frank chose to immerse himself in the obsessions of his “ancestor.” And in the process of learning about the original Bacon’s great discoveries, Francis made one of his own, the kind of vague realization that emboldens a person to take a leap of faith across the great unknown. This discovery, rather than fulfilling the predictions of his detractors, was the thing that led Frank to discover his vocation. In spite of the apparent happenstance of their shared name, Frank was inspired by the discoveries of the first Francis Bacon, and began to believe that his destiny was somehow linked to that of the old, dead scientist. Maybe it wasn’t exactly a reincarnation—he couldn’t think about things like that—but he felt sure it was some sort of calling, a circumstance that was too obvious to have been an act of pure coincidence.

The life history of Baron Verulam, the first Francis Bacon, transformed the life of our Francis. The more Frank learned about the baron, the more he felt that he had to continue, in some way, the work of the original Francis Bacon. As unpleasant as he had been toward those around him, Francis Bacon had managed to achieve immortality. Young Francis felt a bond with him, for he, too, felt misunderstood by his contemporaries, and he comforted himself by thinking that one day his mother, stepfather, and schoolmates would be sorry for the shoddy treatment they subjected him to. He felt especially proud of sharing his last name with a man to whom Shakespearean plays had been attributed. Just like Sir Francis, Frank had become a learned person for a variety of reasons, including curiosity, the search for truth, plus a certain amount of natural talent for his studies. But in the end Frank easily admitted that the greatest source of inspiration had been the same one Sir Francis cited: rage. For him, a happy coexistence with the precise, concrete elements of mathematics was the only solution to confronting the chaos of the universe, whose destiny was utterly independent of his. Adapting a little saying made famous by his Elizabethan hero, Frank would have said for himself: “I have studied numbers, not men.”

In 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 to some of the greatest physicists and mathematicians in the world. He didn’t doubt his decision for a second.

“Very well,” said the dean. “Then I suppose there’s nothing left to say. How old are you, my boy?”

“Twenty.”

“You’re still so young … too young. Perhaps you’ll still be able to set things right sometime in the future. But don’t waste time; the early years are essential for physicists. It’s one of those unwritten rules, unfair as they may be, but you must know it by heart: After turning thirty, a physicist is through. Through. I’m telling you this from experience.”

“Thank you for your advice, sir.”

His appointment with Professor Von Neumann, on Tuesday at three in the afternoon, flashed through Bacon’s mind, but the dean quickly interrupted his reverie:

“All right, then, get out of here.”

HYPOTHESIS II: On Von Neumann and the War

“My name is Bacon, Professor. Francis Bacon.”

Frank had arrived at the institute at the agreed-upon hour. He had put on one of his best suits, rat-gray, and a tie with a pattern that looked like little giraffes.

“Oh, yes, Bacon. Born January 22, 1561, at York House. Died 1626. A lunatic, unfortunately. But, oh, yes, what a fertile mind. Did you know I could recite the entire Novum Organum for you, line by line, right now if I wanted? But I suppose that would be rather boring for you. Anyway, I have another appointment that I don’t want to be too late for.”

Of all the men of modern science, nobody seemed able to warm up to the cunning, turbulent nature of numbers quite as John von Neumann had. As a young scholar at Princeton, where he spent a few months as a professor of mathematics, he had acquired a reputation for being one of the most intelligent men in the entire world—and, at the same time, one of the worst professors imaginable. His name in Germany was Johannes, a transliteration of the original Hungarian Janós, and so he had little apprehension about translating it into English in order to adapt to the more casual way of his adopted country. Born in Budapest in 1903, he became Johnny von Neumann in the United States, which made him an odd mix of Scotch whisky and Czech beer. He was now only thirty-seven, but his career as a child prodigy had catapulted him early on into the pantheon of contemporary mathematics. For the past few months, he was also the youngest member of the Institute for Advanced Study. Bacon had never taken any of his courses, but the Princeton campus was rife with tales of the professor’s many eccentricities, and Bacon was familiar with all of them. As he would soon hear for himself, Von Neumann had a peculiar accent that was not precisely the result of his Central European provenance—in fact, many people said he had simply invented it himself. He always wore the same uniform, a neat, coffee-colored suit that he never varied, not even during the summer or for excursions into the nearby countryside. In addition to his gift for rapid-fire mathematical calculations, he also had a photographic memory: After merely scanning a page of text or quickly reading through a novel he could recite it by heart, from start to finish without committing a single error. He had done this several times with A Tale of Two Cities.

Impatient by nature, Von Neumann despised his students; he abhorred their slow minds and the countless unnecessary repetitions he was often obliged to parcel out, like a country farmer feeding his chickens. Worst of all, however, were the expressions of shock and fear that registered upon his students’ faces whenever they attempted to decipher one of his elegant, eloquent equations. Nobody, but nobody, was able to understand his lectures, simply because of the absurd speed at which he gave them. By the time a student had begun to copy out some labyrinthine formula Von Neumann had quickly scratched out on the blackboard, the surprisingly nimble professor had already grabbed his eraser and leapt into the next problem, as if the blackboard were a giant Broadway billboard. During Von Neumann’s tenure at Princeton, only one graduate student had managed to finish his thesis under Von Neumann’s direction, and after that experience, the professor knew he would never again put himself through the tedium of rereading poorly written proofs and decoding someone else’s muddle of arithmetic nonsense. When Abraham Flexner invited Von Neumann to join the institute, he was quick to mention that Von Neumann would have no teaching obligations whatsoever, just like all the other professors there. The mathematician gladly accepted the offer; this way, he would be forever free from the bothersome plague of busybody coeds who couldn’t even tell Mozart from Beethoven.

“I have to go now. A meeting with the inner sanctum, if you know what I mean. Tea and cookies and all those illustrious names. Well, not quite as illustrious as yours, but prominent enough that I shouldn’t be late, you know?” He stopped for a second. He was stocky, even slightly chubby, with a greasy double chin hiding beneath his rounded beard. His accent was truly impossible to place. “What are we going to do with you, Bacon? I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, I didn’t expect … Well, you tell me what to do.” Bacon tried in vain to say something. The way Von Neumann carried on a conversation reminded him of the caterpillar’s erratic, long-winded pronouncements in Alice in Wonderland. “All right, all right, that’s a fine idea, Bacon. Listen, tomorrow I’m throwing a little party, you know. I try to do that every so often; this place can be so boring sometimes. I’m always telling my wife that we should open a bar here, like the kind in Budapest, but she never listens to me. All right, I have to go now. I’ll expect you then, at my house tomorrow. Five o’clock, before the other guests arrive … One of those receptions, you know? To keep us from dying of boredom. I suppose you’ve heard about them. All right, I have to go. I’m sorry. Five o’clock, then. Don’t forget.”

“But, Professor …” Bacon tried interrupting him.

“I told you already, we’ll discuss your problem later on. At length, I promise. Now, if you’ll be so kind …”

After several minutes battling with an obtuse secretary to obtain the professor’s home address, Bacon finally arrived at Von Neumann’s house, at 26 Westcott Road, punctual as always. A pair of waiters were busy unloading trays of sandwiches from a catering truck parked in front of the main door to the house, carrying them methodically to the kitchen, like a team of laborers preparing to feed an ant farm. Bacon would never have admitted it, but of course he had heard about Von Neumann’s receptions. His guest list was like a Who’s Who of the Princeton intellectual scene; even Einstein was rumored to have dropped in on occasion. During this particular time, an atmosphere of war hovered over everything—after all, in less than a year Pearl Harbor would be bombed. But here, people seemed intent upon acting as if the world were the same as ever. Or perhaps people simply wanted to enjoy the last moments of calm before the storm hit.

Bacon rang the doorbell and waited a few seconds, but nobody answered. Emboldened, he entered the house along with one of the waiters and began timidly whispering, “Professor? Professor Von Neumann?” in a voice so low that nobody would have heard, even if standing three feet away. After a few minutes, a maid finally noticed him and went upstairs to announce his arrival to Von Neumann. Then the professor appeared, half dressed, with his jacket on and a tie slung over his arm.

“Bacon!”

“Yes, Professor.”

“You, you again!” He sat down in one of the living room chairs and signaled for Bacon to do the same. He began buttoning his shirt with his little fingers, fat as grapes. “Your persistence doesn’t bother me at all, no, not at all, but have some manners. I’m about to throw a party, you know? Wouldn’t you agree that this isn’t exactly the best moment to have a discussion about physics?”

“But you asked me to come, Professor.”

“Nonsense, nonsense, Bacon.” Now he was struggling with his tie. “Well, now that you’re here, it wouldn’t be right for you to leave empty-handed, would it? Manners, my friend, that’s what’s wrong with the Americans. Now, that’s nothing personal, I assure you, but it is beginning to bother me.” Von Neumann studied him, like a pathologist performing an autopsy. “I suppose that I am to decide whether you will be accepted at the institute, is that correct? Your future, sitting here in my hands. It’s a terrible responsibility, my friend, just terrible. How should I know whether you’re a genius or a fool?”

“I sent you my CV, Professor.”

“You’re a physicist, is that right?”

“That’s correct, sir.”

“Have you ever heard of such foolishness?” Von Neumann muttered. “Just because I wrote that tiny little book on quantum theory, why should that mean I have to review the file of every silly fool who decides to take up physics, right? Don’t look at me like that, my friend, I’m not talking about you, of course not. Well, I’m afraid that those imbeciles have sent me nothing.” Von Neumann got up from his chair in search of a mushroom vol-au-vent. When he located the tray, he picked it up and took it with him; he offered one to Bacon, who declined. “Can you believe it? Nothing. And the worst of all is that I bet it’s time for me to present my evaluation of you to the committee, Bacon. What can I do about it?”

“I don’t know, Professor.”

“I’ve got it!” he shouted, excited by his sudden revelation. “You are aware, are you not, that we are about to enter a war?”

Bacon didn’t seem to understand Von Neumann’s quick change of subject.

“Yes,” he said, just to say something.

“Mark my words, Bacon, we are going to war with Adolf and the Japs.”

“So many people oppose the idea of a war—”

“Are you afraid, is that what you’re trying to say? That you don’t want to save the world from the clutches of that monster?”

Bacon didn’t understand exactly where Von Neumann was headed; it almost seemed as though he was making fun of him, and so Bacon just tried to keep his answers noncommittal.

“Tell me, Bacon, what is a war?”

“I don’t know, a confrontation between two or more enemies?”

“But what else than that?” Von Neumann was getting agitated. “Why do they fight, Bacon, why?”

“Because they have contradictory interests,” Bacon spat out.

“For God’s sake, no; it’s precisely the opposite!”

“Because they have common interests?”

“Of course! They have the same objective, the same goal, but it is only available to one of them. That is why they go to war.”

Bacon was confused. Von Neumann, meanwhile, was trying to calm himself down with more mushroom sandwiches.

“Let me give you a simple example. Let’s take the Nazis and the British: What is their common objective? The same pie, Bacon: the Europe pie. Ever since Hitler took control of Germany in 1933, all he’s done is ask for pieces. First he wanted Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, Belgium, Holland, France, Norway. Now he wants the whole pie. At first, the British tolerated his expansion, like they did at that abominable conference in Munich, but then they realized that Germany had too much. You see?”