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 .