Up the Infinite Corridor: Mit and the Technical Imagination

Science writer Hapgood's ``infinite corridor''refers both to an architectural feature of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Cambridge campus and to the seemingly endless pathway of progress in applied science so often associated with MIT. Readers may find his rambling account a bit like a six-hour prospective-student tour, with brief excursions into lectures and graduate symposia on nanotechnology, artificial life, advanced materials science and, of course, the history of the Tech Model Railroad Club, whose post-WW II members were known as ``hackers.'' Hapgood gives us brushes with faculty geniuses and charged neologisms like the chapter title ``The Vision Chip,'' but with little impact. For a down-in-the-lab view of life at the best engineering school in the world, see Pepper White ' s 1991 The Idea Factory: Learning to Think at MIT. Hapgood's profile is interesting, but primarily anecdotal. (Feb.)