Just inside the front door of Fuld Hall at the Institute of Advanced Study the switchboard was humming busily. "Professor Street from Harvard," the operator said. "He wants to talk to Doctor Yang.'

In the office of J. Robert Oppenheimer '26, director of the Institute, a secretary replied to a question concerning the unusual bustle of activity in the building. "Yes, isn't it wonderful? Yang and Lee won the Nobel Prize. Haven't you seen the front page picture in the Herald Trib?"

Chen Ning Yang, professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute, and Tsung Dao Lee, a Columbia professor studying on leave of absence at the Institute, had won the highest award in Physics for their achievement in the area of elementary particles. They had shown that nature can distinguish between her right and left hand and thus had shattered one of the foundations of physical sciences.

But to the Institute members, the fact of achievement and prize-winning is nothing very far out of the ordinary. In the amazing School of Mathematics, Yang and Lee are only two of a host of hyper-brilliant physicists and mathematicians who read like a "Who's Who in Physics and Mathematics."' On its professional staff in recent years have been Armond Bore Albert Einstein, Kurt Godel, Deane Montgomery, Marston Morse, Oppenheimer, Abraham Pais, Oswald Veblen, John von Neuman, Bengt Stromgren, Hassler Whitney, Herman Weyl, and Yang.

Members of the schools of Mathematics have been such men as Niels Bohr, Res Jost, Jean Leray, Lee, and Wolfgang Pauli.

Teacher and Student

On the little island of higher mathematics and particle physics these men form a school without peer in the entire world. They have written a large part of the history of modern mathematical and physical thought.

The new devlopment by Yang and Lee is only the most recent in a seemingly inexhaustible string of ideas to issue from the Institute, and yet there could be no incident to better illustrate the fundamental nature of the Institute for Advanced Study than this one. Yang and Lee are young men working at the very fronties of one of the most complex areas of study. In the jargon of modern education, Yang is the "teacher," while Lee is the "student," and yet it was the combined work of these two men which won the Prize. This, in brief, is the essence on the Institute.

This small and utterly unique school, located on the outskirts of Princeton, New Jersey, resembles more closely a clubhouse or perhaps a country school than it does the most high-level institution of learning in the world. In this respect, it blends very well into the general land scape of the area which is, of course, dominated by that vast, educational country club, Princeton University.

In most ways, this country atmosphere is ideal. The main purpose of the Institute is to give to the world's most advanced scholars a place where they can find the peace and quiet necessary to the development and fruition of their scholarly researchers, and there could scarcely be a more suitable location for such peace and quiet than in the lovely, southern New Jersey countryside.

In still another aspect, the country location symbolizes the withdrawal of the tiny community of scholars from the rest of the world. There are only two schools at the Institute, the School of Mathematics and the School of Historical Studies. In these two fields, there is practically no need of contact with society. If something is lacking here, the Institute trys to bring it into the academic community rather than to go out and meet it on neutral ground. The subject matter with which the Institute works is tightly confined by the strict disciplines of mathematical analysis and the historical method.

At the Institute the only tools a scholar needs are his pencil and paper, a quiet place of study, and the opportunity to exchange ideas with men who are at a similar level of scholarship. The emphasis is different depending on the individual member. For some, the Institute affords a few years' freedom from the tedious requirements of class schedules, of conferences for students, and of faculty meetings. For others, the Institute is a place where the young, post-doctoral student may further his knowledge through association with the professors and fellow members of the academic community.

There is, obviously, no formal "program of education." The seminars generally arise from the interests of a group of members. Some seminars, especially in the School of Mathematics, meet each week to discuss what is, in the words of Oppenheimer, "new and difficult in the field." Other seminars discuss "older material, material which may range back one or two years." At the present time, astrophysicist Bengt Stromgren, newly arrived at the Institute, is giving a series of lecture-seminars on his special field of interest.

Any intellectually competent person with an interest in the subject can attend these lctures. Graduate students and professors from Princeton University often attend and, indeed are welcomed by the Institute. It is obvious, therefore, that the Institute's greatness and unique opportunity for learning is carried out to a far greater extent in the individual thinking of the members and their spontaneous intercommunication of ideas, often over the dinner table or in the office, with another member or members.

The work of Yang and Lee is a perfect example of this type of learning. Their work was largely a product of individual thought and research which was, nevertheless, strongly influenced by talks with other members and professors. The result was a new theory which sheds much light on the fundamental nature of the physical universe, and yet the total result, at least symbolically, is more than that. A new theory was born, but in the process the entire community shared in the function of learning, as indeed it does at all times.