Tonight is a night of emotional exuberance in recognition of intelligence savored. Tonight we celebrate abnormal behavior of the best kind. One's high school performance must be more than a standard deviation above the mean to be admitted to the University of California system. To be honored tonight one’s performance must have been more than a standard deviation above the UC mean. You have risen above the trite phrase of “"Just Do It”" to grasp instead “"Do It Well".” You have decided upon goals and then reached above them. You have learned that excellence happens to those who are prepared.
In much of the world, the winner is eulogized. In sports we have competitions, eliminations, and champions we cheer. In intellectual endeavors we have the same. We just go about it differently. There are years of hard work, not noticed or understood by most. Only a few grasp the challenge and deliver. You have done that. Entering the University of California was the equivalent of making the playoffs. With four years of playoffs, you have won the championship. This is a moment for articulate, jubilant celebration, not quiet contemplation.
In our joy it is well to be thankful. Our first thanks are to those whose accomplishments we celebrate. Parents and faculty have seen the years of effort put forward by those honored tonight. Let us congratulate the students wholeheartedly.
There is an additional gratitude I feel this evening. Two essential qualities are required to permit the University of California to educate the best students in the state. The labors of a visionary faculty and the trust of the taxpayers of California make the University of California the greatest university. The trust of the taxpayers is well founded. The colleagues with whom I work are dedicated and extremely talented. It is a privilege to work in such an environment.
Our celebration of excellence occurs in the context of our society and awe of the assembled knowledge of mankind. Many of the great contributions to humanity are represented among the academic disciplines we pursue at universities. There is a canon for an outstanding education. This body of work judged important for understanding and functioning well in society is often assailed but there is only a loss when it is disregarded. This canon changes with time, usually slowly. However, as we speak the canon is changing abruptly. We have entered the Electrical Age.
In the canon of the written English word, Shakespeare rightly resides at the fore. There is no emotion or human motive which is not revealed in the Bard’s writings. His influence is pervasive in the English-speaking world. There is another who now joins that foreground in the written English canon. His writings are based upon measurable and certain truths, yet they engender the most profound imagination. His works are many, but his greatest prose is only four lines long. His works fundamentally influence every person in the modern world, whether or not they comprehend his prose.Some six score and four years ago the scientist James Clerk Maxwell gave us four lines of prose among his vast writings. Two lines came completely from others, to whom he was grateful. The third line was written by Maxwell as he interpreted Michael Faraday’s measured truths. The fourth line, which came incomplete from Ampere, was finished brilliantly by Maxwell, based upon his own experiments and Faraday’s insights. I put it to you that the modern canon includes science and I will try to persuade you of that simply.
Let us ponder how electricity is fostering an Olympian change in society. Scientists and engineers characterize different periods of civilization by significant inventions, e.g. the bronze age or the age of steam. All of these ages have a theme of innovation in the mechanical world. What is the greatest mechanical invention? The wheel, clearly, in all its forms. Gears, rods, tires, cams, axles, bearings. The wheel helps us keep time. It transports us. Wheels have been important to society for over two thousand years.What is so remarkable about electricity in comparison? Consider just the transistor, that small electrical invention that has been around for less than fifty years. The transistor is found in computers, telephones, watches, automobiles, radios, and televisions. In short, the transistor is everywhere. For this talk my words are amplified by transistors. Consider all the wheels in the United States. Consider all the wheels ever made of any kind. The number is large. Yet the number of transistors made in three days exceeds the total of all wheels in the United States accumulated over all time. Transistors are made more often than the word “the” is uttered by the planet’s population. It is relatively rare that the printed word is put to terminal or paper without benefit of a transistor.
Civilization was in the Mechanical Age for all time until a century ago. All the ages we labeled before fit into this overarching Mechanical Age. Now we are experiencing profound change. We are entering the Electrical Age, the greatest material change of civilization ever. The Electrical Age is not comprehended by observing a wheel rolling down a hill. It is more subtle. It is more powerful. It requires more effort to understand.
All scholars who profess a modern view must engage seriously in the study of the sciences, just as they clearly need to partake of humanistic inquiry. Today, artists who do not comprehend the order and constraints of the natural world are as illiterate as scientists who cannot form and present arguments well. At UC Irvine, we embrace this philosophy of broad inquiry. All students must forage in the arts and humanities, the natural and social sciences, and other disciplines to obtain a perspective of the modern canon. Those present tonight have foraged with voracious appetite. Knowing that fleeing would give them a lifelong disability, these scholars in the Electrical Age did not flee the sciences, no matter their major of study.
To produce and maintain excellence in any society requires three elements: a vision of the future, an understanding of the world in which one lives, and knowledge of the contributions of one’s predecessors. When facing these three elements those seeking excellence respond as did James Joyce: “"Yes I said yes I will Yes".
“"I have given over,
I will speak no more:
Do what you will;
your wisdom be your guide.”"
- Shakespeare, II King Henry IV, Act 2, Scene 3 -