Copy 2 of DOC - Caltechcampuspubs - California Institute of ...

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Mathematics, Physics, a"nd Chemistry are universally recognized
as the fundamental sciences the development of which has
supplied the main-spring of modern civilization. Accordingly,
these subjects have been given an outstanding place in the program
of the Institute.
Further, since the best education is that which comes from
the contact of youth with creative and resourceful minds, the
staff of the Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics has been from
the beginning a group of productive physicists rather than merely
a group of teachers. The entering freshman makes some contact
in his first year with practically all of the members of that staff,
some ten in number, and he has the opportunity to maintain
that contact throughout his four undergraduate years, and his
graduate work as well if he elects to go on to the higher degrees.
It is the combination of a large graduate school of phYSics
and a limited number of undergraduate students which makes
the distinctive feature of the work in physics at the Institute.
The instruction is done by the small group method, eighteen to
a section, save for one rather elaborate demonstration lecture
each week throughout the freshman and sophomore years. All
of the ten members of the staff participate in giving this lecture.
The undergraduate student who elects physics is usually given
opportunity to participate as early as his junior or senior year
in some one of the from thirty to sixty researches which are
always under way in the laboratory. The average yearly output
of the laboratory during the past five years has been from forty
to fifty major papers. There are three general seminars per
week, which are regularly attended by all research workers, including
in general ten or a dozen National and International
Research Fellows and all graduate students, numbering from
forty to fifty. In addition there is a weekly theoretical seminar