The Prosperity Years

Abstract

In the early 80s Petri was firmly seated in his saddle. His institute consisted of a sworn community of followers that certainly did not underestimate their importance. What happened there, more down to earth colleagues from other institutes often considered a glass bead game, divorced from reality (in the sense of Hermann Hesse). Petri’s Institut für Systemforschung (ISF, Institute for System Research)—was often even stigmatized as the Institute for Science Fiction. Be that as it may, the institute was—to stay with the jargon—the mothership of net theory. There was an endless coming and going from guest researchers from all over the world, desiring to learn from the master. Because that was precisely what he had become: the undisputed authority and custodian of the insights into net theory. Many would call him the Pope of the nets, others however not, because, as was sometimes observed, the Pope still has someone above him.