Our History
As IRS was only established in 2016, we look to history and borrow some wisdom from Greek mythology to define our philosophy.
In Greek mythology Sisyphus, founder and first king of Ephyra, was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by the gods and was forced to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, repeating this action for eternity. In the final chapter of his philosophical essay published in 1942, Albert Camus uses Sisyphus as an example to introduce and explain his philosophy of the absurd. The absurd is seen by Camus as man’s search for the meaning of life, in an unintelligible world devoid of God and eternal values or truth. Camus sees Sisyphus as the absurd hero who lives life to the fullest, hates death, ultimately condemned to a meaningless task for eternity.
At IRS, we strive not to be engaged in Sisyphean tasks, i.e. tasks that are both laborious and futile. At IRS we rather opt to have a pragmatic approach to science!