Cambridge University Reporter Special

A Congregation of the Regent House was held this day at 2.30 p.m. The Chancellor was present. Processions formed in the Schools Arcade at 2.25 p.m., passed round the Senate-House Yard, and entered the Senate-House by the South Door and the East Door.

Music was performed at the Congregation by Cambridge University Instrumental Award-holders, the Choirs of Gonville and Caius and St Catharine's Colleges, and by the King's Trumpeters.

Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and Physics and Director of the NSF Laboratory of Molecular Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

The Orator delivered the following speeches when presenting to The Chancellor the recipients of Honorary Degrees:

Theologiae scientiarum reginae qui studet difficili paret dominae; nempe errare promptius solent homines quam uera discernere. sed is qui iuuenis amore Dei instinctus rem diuinam altius intellegere latiusque disseminare cupiebat, quid libentius faceret? primo suo libro, theologia praestanti, Scientiae Volnus titulum dedit, uerba a poeta et sacerdote illo Ordouicum mutuatus (neque ipse ab opere poetico abhorret); tunc Arii cuiusdam studio, haeretici uiri, tam periculoso quam utili suscepto librum edidit doctrina densissimum, luce sapientiaque clarissimum.

tot numero libros, libellos, orationes edit, omnesque bonis uerbis boni uiri plenas, ut eum semper philosophari credideris. sed ex aulis bibliothecisque in episcopatum Silurum electus prouinciam illam tanto amore adeoque ipse rursus amatus coluit ut dux omnium Anglicanorum aliquando fieri deberet. et factus est, ingenti cum spe multorum. quae tamen in Ariano libro scripsit forsitan meminerit, ex ambagibus multiplicibus quae potestati apud Christianos exercendae obstent ultimam uideri esse nullam fugam. nec uero ut opinor hic uellet esse, qui si quid ambigitur minime quid sibi, quid cuiuis placeat sed quid bono sit ecclesiae tota re subtilissime et amantissime disceptata petit.

habet episcopis quibus praeest permulta quae tradat, sed plura etiam, qua est auctoritate sapientiae, omnibus eis qui Deum illum unum Abramicum cultibus tam diuersis uenerantur. magnum profecto hoc opus; quo suscepto, uersibus poetae quo nullus in hoc loco magis idoneus qui citetur benedicamus:

me diuinus amor toto comitabitur aeuo,
qui quod numquam aberit laudibus usque colam.

praesento uobis magistrum in artibus, Academiae Britannicae sodalem, reuerendissimum atque illustrissimum archiepiscopum Cantuariensem metropolitanum et totius Angliae primatem, collegiorum de Clare et Christi honoris causa socium

ROWAN DOUGLAS WILLIAMS

Students of Theology, the Queen of the Sciences, serve a difficult mistress; error is much easier than perception of truth. But for a young man inspired by the love of God, eager to understand it more deeply and to spread word of it more widely, there could be no happier study. His first book, outstanding for its theology, is called The Wound of Knowledge; he took the title from R. S. Thomas, poet and divine (Rowan Williams is something of a poet himself at times); then he undertook the perilous but valuable investigation of one Arius, a heretic, and produced a book which is as packed with learning as it is bright with understanding.

So numerous are his books, essays and addresses, all of them full of the good words of a good man, that you might think he had pursued an academic career throughout. Election to the bishopric of Monmouth took him away from academe; as bishop he served his diocese with such affection (an affection fully returned, it should be said) that he was surely bound for the leadership one day of the whole Anglican communion. And so it came to pass, amid the great hopes of very many. He may remember perhaps a sentence from his book on Arius: 'There seems no final escape from the manifold ambiguities surrounding the exercise of power in the Christian church.' Nor do I think he would wish for one: when a problem arises, he puts before his own or anyone's opinion the good of the Church, and he seeks that good through most careful, loving and thorough debate.

He has much to give to the bishops whom he leads, and even more, such is the authority of his knowledge, to all those who worship the one God of Abraham with such diversity. It is a huge task. Let us bless him on his way with a verse from a poet supremely proper to quote in this place, George Herbert:

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
shall measure all my days,
and as it never shall remove,
so neither shall my praise.

ROWAN DOUGLAS WILLIAMS, M.A., F.BA.,

Honorary Fellow of Clare College and of Christ's College, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England

Fata pecuniaria qui dicunt quali spelunca utuntur? rupibusne quas lustrauit Sibylla Cumana? an aede et Villa quadam uenerabili forma? an humiliore loco, prope flumen sito, qualem suum descripsit asinus ille fabula memoratus: angulum nequaquam admirandum, sed eis quibus placet frigus, umor, deformitas - et carduos edendos addiderim - aliquantum peculiarem.

asini illius agnomen huic uiro collegae campestres olim dederunt: nam carduos quidem manducare multis uidentur ei qui rebus argentariis student; hic autem, cursum non mensarii sed professoris non semel creati secutus, uir sapientissimus est quem facile nostrum esse agnouimus, librorum libellorumque auctorem, oratorem apertum et facetum, rationum uectigalium magistrum, atque in eo quod quid praecinendo sit opus longe abesse quin ipse neget se mirari num cras abunde grandinet an ningat an quiduis; hodie enim si serenum nihil referre; nihil signi - sed amplius deficere - nihil istius saltem inesse nisi tempestatis aliquantillum. at enim offici est ut prouideat. at collegio ceterorum augurum consulto tum demum accurate quantula in mensem usura mutueris et commodes nuntiat.

mensa Anglica iam diutius omnibus exsistit quae pro ciuitate funguntur. sed etiam de se uaticinatur hic uir, fieri posse ut omnes eius modi mensae breui pereant: nam cum de futuris sit nihil certi, melius esse ut illa distincte dicantur, ut ciues eorum quae euentura sint quasi participes se ipsos esse percipiant. quo consilio capto libertatem usurae nutu IXuirorum mensariorum dicendae nuper a patribus acceptam ciuibus quodam modo tradidit usurpandam.

praesento uobis magistrum in artibus, Academiae Britannicae sodalem, argentariae mensae Anglicae rectorem, collegiorum Regalis et Sancti Iohannis Euangelistae honoris causa socium

MERVYN ALLISTER KING

What sort of cave do prophets of finance speak from? Are they on the rocks of Vergil's Sibyl? Or have they a venerable seat at some Holt End? Or are they lower down, somewhere by a river, in a place such as Eeyore claimed as his? 'It isn't as if there was anything very wonderful about my little corner. Of course, for people who like cold, wet, ugly bits' (and a diet of thistles, I venture to add) 'it is something rather special.'¹

Mervyn King received the nickname of Eeyore from cricketing colleagues; eating thistles is indeed how some see the study of Economics, and he has been a Professor of the subject more than once. He is not a professional banker; he is a scholar of high distinction, and properly at home in this place as author of books and articles, speaker of clarity and wit, and master of theories of taxation. In so far as he needs to make predictions, he is a long way from saying, 'I shouldn't be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow: blizzards and whatnot. Being fine today doesn't mean anything. It has no sig-; what's the word? Well, it has none of that. It's just a small piece of weather.'² Of course he has a duty to make forecasts, but he consults his fellow seers first, and only then declares the next month's minimum lending rate.

The Bank of England has a longer continuous history as a central clearing bank than any other. Yet this seer can even consider his own fate, saying that clearing banks could easily become outmoded; the future being uncertain it is better to speak with transparency, so that citizens themselves can see that they too have a part in what emerges. That policy has helped him to involve a wider public in the consequences of the freedom to fix the rate so recently given to the Bank by Parliament.

MERVYN ALLISTER KING, M.A., F.B.A.,

Honorary Fellow of King's College and of St John's College,Governor of the Bank of England

Patre qui pueros docuit et matre quae aegros coluit nato, cui magis conuenit quam huic uiro ut ipsi quoque designaretur angustus ille clauus et cursus honorum equester? ita tandem euenit, sed aegre. nam eo natus est anno et in ea patria ubi quidam rem publicam gerendam unis sibi arrogauerunt; neque ipse nationis illorum erat. sed prout tum licebat educatus apud nos olim studuit; in patriam reuersus e sua in aliam migrauit regionem quae ciuitas suo iure affirmabatur esse. linguam eorum perdidicit; docebat, scribebat, ibique librum suum primum edidit cui titulus est Stulti Aliaeque Fabulae. praestat enim hic fabularum arte breuiorum.

ne tamen ex aetatis illius periculis euasisse migratione uideatur. opprimebat omnes terror. sed metuebat hic uir ne corruptio morum altius insereretur quam ut salus ciuilis umquam reuiuesceret: quem metum libris uariis scrutatur, uno cui nomen est Iterum Repertum Quod Solitum Erat, altero nuperrime edito Dominae Mandelae Querela: in illo libellos multa rerum humanarum scientia conscriptos, in hoc fabulam reperietis uelut a poeta acutissimo inuentam quam cum legebam mirabar tot de rebus muliebribus uirum intellegere. hominem non unius stili habemus.

sed his sex annis academiae principi Africae australis praeest, quam sperat magno fore omnibus Africis exemplo et auxilio: potius fit auctor an rector an uates? sed illa omnia facit, qui dum libris et officiis haud secus ac parentes docet aegros animi et discipulos colit, consilia rerum ampliorum inire non desinit.

praesento uobis magistrum in artibus, Vniuersitatis Promuntori Vrbis procancellarium et principem, collegi Churchilliani alumnum,

NJABULO SIMAKAHLE NDEBELE

His father taught schoolchildren and his mother tended the sick: who more likely than this man to find a career of similar service and status? He did, but not so directly. He was born in the year that certain people took the management of his and their country entirely into their own hands; and he was not one of them. Nevertheless he received such education as was then permitted, and in due course studied at this university. When he returned to South Africa, he moved from his own area to another, which was declared to be a state in its own right. He learnt the language; he taught and wrote, and there in Lesotho he published his first book, called Fools and Other Stories. He is a master of the short story.

Migration must not be thought to have removed him from the perils of his times. All felt the weight of the terror. But this man's fear was for the corruption of life and thought: might it go so deep that the sense of a true citizenship could never be recovered? He explores this fear in very different works; I mention one called Rediscovery of the Ordinary, and another called The Cry of Winnie Mandela. In the first you will find essays and studies of great humanity; in the other, a story surely conceived by a poet. When I read The Cry I was amazed that a text so voiced through women could be written with such understanding by a man. He writes with great variety.

For the last six years he has been Vice-Chancellor of South Africa's premier university; he hopes it will become a centre of resource for all Africans. Is he now a writer or an administrator or a visionary? He is all three: in his service both literary and administrative he recalls his parents in teaching the sick at heart and in tending students, while his mind's eye is also on wider horizons.

NJABULO SIMAKAHLE NDEBELE, M.A.,

of Churchill College, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Cape Town

Schola cui nuper hic uir praeerat eo anno est condita quo mortuus est cancellarius ille noster Albertus: uincula quae pacto recentissimo inter nos constituta multo antiquiora esse potuerunt. scientias enim utiles quid est quod nos abhorreremus quin et sciendi et adhibendi causa consequeremur? sed sententiam consiliumque illius scholae proprium laudamus, cui studium plerumque in rerum naturam inuestigandam et in machinas inde fabricandas dirigitur. alumni autem tam prospere in negotiando uersantur ut opibus in unum collatis ciuitatem ipsi posse haudquaquam spernendam condere censeantur.

ipse professor librum utilem de luce quali quid radiis strictius in unum coactis metiaris dum docet conscriptum edidit, sed mox scholae praefectus XIV annos quid principes sapientiae, commercii, reipublicae gerendae inter se facerent quo latius rebus cognitis uterentur ad explorandum urgebat. latiusne dixi? ita quidem ad nos reuersa est historia.

quali sit ipse ingenio fabula narremus. anno tum primo studebant apud eum aliqui nostrorum, quos quo benignius exciperet ad cenam inuitauit. multis aliis eo die gestis hospitium sperare dicitur fore ut non serius produceretur; post cenam rogare numquid de commoratione loqui uellent; uelle quidem, et qua sunt disciplina loqui; hic quiete quam cuperet posita fortiter exaudire, et ocius intellectis quae plurima dicerentur alia tum recusare, alia mox curare ut agerentur. sic se gerit uir sapiens: datam occasionem rapit. ad uincula ea excudenda quibus est nostra cum illa coniuncta schola multi multa, sed quantum hic, fecere paucissimi.

praesento uobis uirum in Instituto Technologiae apud Massachusetts praesidem emeritum et artis ingeniariae professorem

CHARLES MARSTILLER VEST

The Institute over which this man presided until recently was founded in the year in which our sometime Chancellor the Prince Consort died. The bonds so lately established between us could have been so much older: we too would have had no reluctance about promoting the theory and application of useful knowledge - but I am quoting the mission statement of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose activity is particularly focused on Science and Engineering. Its alumni are so successful in their careers that counted together they would be the 24th largest economy in the world.

As a professor Charles Vest worked and wrote on Holographic Interferometry, but then held office as President of MIT for fourteen years, and he spent much time getting academics, businessmen and government to work together to exploit knowledge ever more widely. More widely, I said: that is where Cambridge comes into the picture.

As for the man himself, let us reveal him with a story. It was the first year in which students of ours were studying at MIT. He wanted to give them a good welcome and invited them to dinner. He had had a busy day; he had expressed the hope privately that the entertainment would not be too prolonged. After dinner he asked if they wished to make any observations on their time so far. They did so wish, and being Cambridge students they went ahead. Bravely he set aside the rest he desired and listened, answering some of their comments there and then but taking care that other points were promptly met later. That is the conduct of a wise man: if opportunity offers, he seizes it. In forging the links which bring our two institutions together many have done much, but very few as much as this man.

CHARLES MARSTILLER VEST,

Gradum primum assecutus est hic uir rerum gestarum studio. a rebus gestis ordiamur. unde sit ortus mundus quaesiuere philosophi Graeci: Thales ex aqua creatum uisus est dicere, Anaximander ex eo quod infinitum uocabat, Anaximenes ex aere, atque in hoc quidem consensere, ex uno ortum et creatum esse. tum Democritus rationem protulit elementorum quae atomos appellauit: quae cum multo postea inuestigari poterant, ipsa ex aliis particulis etiam minoribus componi uisa sunt. rursus inde peruentum erat ad alteram rationem eorum quibus nihil minus esse potest, quae fila uel chordae appellantur - nisi illam rationem etiam alia superstringeret.

haec fila ea magnitudine habentur esse quae uix credi potest: in puncto quod super litteram I minusculam ponitur atramenti sunt atomorum paene quadragiens miliens numero: ut cum mundo atomus, sic cum atomo comparatur filum. res tam exigua inuestigarine potest? at non experimentis, sed rationibus mathematicis uestigatur, quarum sunt quas hic uir tanto ingeni acumine inuenit ut mathematici ipsi, parcum genus, praemio suo praestantissimo donauerint. librum autem cum duobus sociis de filorum superiorum ratione conscripsit, in quo uerba sunt huius modi: Manubrium si superficiei addideris, idem habebis ac si filorum clausorum laqueum. unusne dubito num eadem significentur quae dicuntur? rationes mathematicas in hoc loco omnino omiserim.

sed fila quid faciunt? uibrantur, ita ut ex uibrationibus uis tota generetur qua geruntur omnes res; qua ratione probata, quattuor illae potestates forsitan ad unam tandem redactae sint, mittaturque harmonia illa caelestis quam posuere Pythagoras Platoque.

praesento uobis uirum in Instituto Studiorum Superiorum Princetonensi rei physicae mathematicalis in nomine Caroli Simonyi professorem

EDWARD WITTEN

Edward Witten took his first degree in History. Let us begin with some history. What the world is made of was a question pursued by early Greek thinkers. Thales appears to have said that water was the basic matter; Anaximander refused to define his matter, and Anaximenes said it was air. They agreed on this at least, that it was one thing and only one. Then Democritus put forward the theory of basic units called atoms; but when the powers to investigate them became available, they turned out to be made of even smaller particles themselves. So we track back to a further theory of things ultimately small, called strings - except that now we have the superstring theory by way of improvement.

These strings are so small as to be barely believable. In the dot on the top of the little letter I there are nearly four billion atoms of ink. A string is to an atom as an atom is to the universe. Can something so tiny be investigated? Not experimentally, perhaps, but it can with mathematics, and this man has invented some of the necessary mathematics with such penetrating brilliance that mathematicians themselves, a chary set, have awarded him their highest honour, the Fields Medal. He has with two colleagues written a book on Superstring Theory; I quote a sentence from it: 'Adding a handle to a surface is equivalent to adding a loop of closed strings.' Am I alone in wondering whether words and meaning quite equate? The mathematical equations in this context I omit entirely.

What do the strings do? They vibrate, and from their vibrations all the energy that works the world is generated. If the theory is established, perhaps at last the four forces of modern physics will be unified in one theory, and that music of the spheres will be released which Pythagoras and Plato once imagined.

EDWARD WITTEN,

Ecce mysterium uobis dico: omnes immutabimur, in momento, in ictu oculi. sed quamdiu icitur oculus, et quam longum est illud immutandi momentum? id cognouit hic uir, qui elementa ab uno in alterum comptum coniugiumque moueri uidet.

tali luce opus erat qualis in Iouis fulmine a philosopho illo et poeta T. Lucretio uisa est:

nam facit ut quae sint illius semina cumquee regione locum quasi in unum cuncta ferantur,omnia coniciens in eum uoluentia cursum…multaque perfigit, cum corpora fulminis ipsacorporibus rerum inciderunt qua texta tenentur.¹

lux illa amplificata ictibus tam breuibus in moleculas immittitur ut spatium temporis numero potius quam uerbo exprimatur, decem ad potestatem sui quintam decimam minuto. breuiore lucis ictu non opus est: nam si adhibeas, magis sit rapidus quam ut immutatio dum fit uideretur.

lux ipsa ad euentum aliquid confert: fulgore primo emisso tum moleculae excitantur; altero emisso, qui per specula tardatus minimo post interuallo aduenit, tunc immutatione coepta in nouum ordinem moueri conspiciuntur atomi. moleculis sunt pro natura sua cuiusque aliis aliae celeritates diuidendi, alia exordia capta, aliae series operum; in una, simplici molecula e duabus atomis composita una quae sodium uocatur, altera quae uiolacea, postquam lucis ictus primus fulsit, atomus utraque prius sexiens ad alteram sexiens ab altera saltatione quadam mouentur quam ruptis uinculis tandem effectum est discidium.

primus est hic uir ciuis Aegyptius idemque philosophus Nobeliano praemio ornatus. praesento uobis uirum in Instituto Technologiae Californiensi rei chimicae physicaeque in nomine Lini Pauling professorem et scientiarum molecularium elaboratori rectorem

AHMED ZEWAIL

Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. But how long does an eye twinkle for? How prolonged is the period of change? This man knows: he has seen the atoms switching from one combination to another.

He needed light of the sort which that scientist and poet Lucretius saw in Jupiter's thunderbolt: 'It causes all its particles, whatever they are, to be concentrated into one place, combining them all as they roll along in that one direction … and many things it transfixes, when the substance of the thunderbolt itself impinges on the substance of objects at their points of combination.' Ahmed Zewail fires laser light at molecules in bursts of femtoseconds, lengths of time so short that they are best expressed numerically: a femtosecond is 10^-15 of a normal second. There is no need for anything shorter: if you used it, it would flash too briefly for any change to be seen happening.

The light makes its own contribution to the experiment. The first flash triggers the activity in the molecules; at the next, which is fractionally delayed by being bounced off mirrors before it arrives, the change has begun, and the atoms of the molecules can be seen disintegrating into a new arrangement. Molecules vary according to their sort in speed of division, in how they start division and in their sequence of events; in one simple molecule, sodium iodide, made of one atom each of sodium and iodine, after the first flash of light each atom goes set to partner six times and six away in a sort of dance until the bonds are broken for good and division is effected.

This man is the first citizen of Egypt to win a Nobel Prize for Science. I present to you

AHMED ZEWAIL,

Linus Pauling Professor of Chemistry and Physics and Director of the NSF Laboratory of Molecular Sciences, California Institute of Technology

Quinquennio uno haec femina, nuperrime gradum primum assecuta, libros edidit quattuor quos laudibus summis extulerunt coronae litteratae. num titulorum meministis, Caueae Aestiuae, Anni Rosciani, Molae? Mola etiam in imagines continuas translata est. de Hierosolyma Aurea dictum est eos qui quinquaginta post annis uirginis uitam qualis in urbe tum degeretur reperire uellent in illo praesertim libro paene totam conscriptam inuenturos. enimuero aetatem suam olent. quos libros si iam magis in armariis quam in manibus uidetis, quid istic? alios scribit; manibus singuli accommodantur, plures armario. legantur omnes precor si iustam habere uultis opinionem; ei quos postea scripsit non adeo coronis placuerunt, sed eodem sunt acumine, eodem oculo, eadem aequitate conscripti, et ad eundem modum ex aeuo suo; minus placuit legentibus, ut opinor, illud aeuum.

operibus olim inquisitis quae egit Benedictus ille figulorum uitam libro praestanti composuit; sunt quae communia utrique esse uideantur, origo non urbana, subtilitas curiosa sed sincera sermonis, consuetudinum singularium propria commotio. in eis quae de illo dicit multa de se quoque ostendit. electa est autem inuitatione iustissima quae litterarum nostratium Interpretem Oxoniensem qui dicitur denuo ederet; iam sextum edit. inter uirtutes maxime optabiles ad opus eius modi suscipiendum, quas eam habere confirmo, est ut permulta ipse legeris, ut merita magis quam mendas percipias, ut opera cuiusuis siue placent tibi siue minus libra et aequitate aestimes. neque interea desinit suos scribere: recentissimus Regina Rubra qui nuncupatur multo mihi gaudio erat.

praesento uobis baccalauream in artibus, excellentissimi ordinis imperi Britannici commendatricem, collegi Newnhamensis alumnam

MARGARET DRABBLE

In the space of five years soon after graduation Margaret Drabble published four books which sent the critics into ecstasies. You may remember their titles: A Summer Birdcage, The Garrick Year, The Millstone. The Millstone was turned into a film. Of Jerusalem the Golden it was said: 'If people in fifty years' time want to know what it was like to be a young woman in London in the 1960s, this novel, like no other, will tell them … a large part of it.' They are indeed redolent of the period. If these books are now more found in bookcases than in people's hands, it matters not. She writes on, and bookcases hold more books than a pair of hands does. To form a fair opinion you should read them all; the ones she wrote after those four did not please the critics to the same extent, but they show the same sharp eye and the same considered judgment, and they too are redolent of their period. The critics, I suspect, were less fond of the period.

At one point she researched the life and works of Arnold Bennett, and wrote an outstandingly good biography. The two of them seem to have a lot in common: non-London origins, a careful but plain precision with language and a particular interest in oddities of behaviour. She was chosen, and a very good choice it was, to re-edit the Oxford Companion to English Literature. That re-edition is now itself in its sixth edition. Among the qualities most desirable for undertaking such a task (and she certainly has the qualities) are a catholic personal acquaintance with our literature, an ability to see merit before fault and a judgment unaffected by partiality to someone's works or by its opposite. Meantime she writes on: I have much enjoyed her most recent book, The Red Queen.

Congregation of the Regent House on 27 June 2006