It looks like a large-scale sculpture, in which leaning steel towers are fused with elements that resemble brick warehouse buildings, a bright yellow kiva, crushed soda cans, and a blindingly silver beached whale with a smokestack in its center. This spring, MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory moved into a new building -- but not just any new building. We moved into the $300 million Ray and Maria Stata Center, created by the often controversial postmodern architect Frank Gehry.

What are a bunch of researchers who pride themselves on rock-solid research, journal publications, and startup companies like Akamai and Peppercoin -- all based on deep mathematics and solid value propositions -- doing in a building that looks all flair? Some of us are not at all sure. But I view this as a wonderful experiment: make everyone just a little uncomfortable and see what their squirmings lead to.