Munger's gift is the largest individual donation in the university's history.
"This residence is going to be hugely helpful to UCSB. This building will be about as good as it can get and offer as good an experience as a physicist can have — and I don’t think you could have a better place on earth to do it," Munger said in the announcement. "Physicists gain enormously from knowing one another and talking to one another and trusting one another. That’s been recognized for a great many decades, but for a long time it just wasn’t feasible. Now we can get people together from all over the world and these people can cross-fertilize each other."
The three-story building, which begins construction this month and should be complete within two years, will become the world's top collaborative study hub, according to the university, whose faculty have won five STEM Nobel Prizes since 1998, three in physics and two in chemistry. Professor Shuji Nakamura won the prize just this month, along with two colleagues from different universities, for his work in pioneering efficient blue LED, a groundbreaking accomplishment for energy-saving lighting.
An investment anchor since 1978 at Berkshire Hathaway -- where Warren Buffett often lauds his partner and friend in his investment letters -- Munger, 90, is used to large returns on investment. What kind of returns can he expect from a residence hall at a physics institute?
“KITP’s mission is to bring together the world’s leading scientists to collaborate on the most challenging and exciting questions in theoretical physics and related fields,” said Lars Bildsten, a U.C. Santa Barbara theoretical physics professor and director of the Kavli Institute. “Charlie’s commitment to this mission is profound. Our visitors now spend their day in Kohn Hall, the center of interactions, but once the Residence is complete they will continue those interactions into the nights and weekends. I’m confident we will see an increased number of collaborations and scientific progress.”
Munger didn't study at U.C. Santa Barbara -- he majored in math and was introduced to physics at University of Michigan, where he pledged a $110 million gift last year. After leaving Michigan to fight in World War II, Munger got his law degree from Harvard Law School. But his grandson is a Santa Barbara alumnus, and a friend close to the school told Munger about the physics building project while they were on a fishing trip. Munger became enthusiastic about the project and even helped with the building design.
“Physics has enormously helped me in life — the logic and power of it,” Munger said in the announcement. “Once you see what a combination of calculus and Newton’s laws will do and the things you can work out, you get an awesome appreciation for the power of getting things in science right. It has collateral benefits for people. And I don’t think you get a feeling for the power of science — not with the same strength — anywhere else than you do in physics.”
