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Freeman Dyson is a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.He posited this insane engineering concept that seems a weeeee bit out of our technological capabilities.He states that alien life very possibly creates spheres around their home star, to prevent the light from leaving their solar system. They would then use those spheres to fuel their own civilization without fear of losing that energy.It wouldn’t just be a physical layer, it might be physical alongside some type of energy or void surrounding the star.His theory is included in things they look for when scanning the sky for alien life, which still hasn’t yielded anything.None-the-less, it’s an epic engineering concept.

The professors at the Institute for Advanced Study do not teach courses. If they want to teach, they can do it at Princeton (or, given the stature of people at the IAS, probably anywhere else that they want).As far as I know, Einstein did not teach any regular courses.

Richard Feynman wrote in his autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (bold is mine; other emphasis in the original):Finally there came in the mail an invitation from the Institute for Advanced Study: Einstein…von Neumann…Wyl…all these great minds! They write to me, and invite me to be a professor there! And not just a regular professor. Somehow they knew my feelings about the Institute: how it’s too theoretical; how there’s not enough real activity and challenge. So they write, “We appreciate that you have a considerable interest in experiments and in teaching, so we have made arrangements to create a special type of professorship, if you wish: half professor at Princeton University, and half at the Institute.”Institute for Advanced Study! Special exception! A position better than Einstein, even! It was ideal; it was perfect; it was absurd!It was absurd. The other offers had made me feel worse, up to a point. They were expecting me to accomplish something. But this offer was so ridiculous, so impossible for me ever to live up to, so ridiculously out of proportion. The other ones were just mistakes; this was an absurdity! I laughed at it while I was shaving, thinking about it.And then I thought to myself, “You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it’s impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!”It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.It wasn’t a failure on my part that the Institute for Advanced Study expected me to be that good; it was impossible. It was clearly a mistake—and the moment I appreciated the possibility that they might be wrong, I realized that it was also true of all the other places, including my own university. I am what I am, and if they expected me to be good and they’re offering me some money for it, it’s their hard luck.Feynman later went on to win the Nobel Prize, which goes to show you how good he really was despite his feelings about himself. Maybe what worked for him will work for you.