The semi-annual meetings of the National Academy of Sciences resemble a five-ring circus much less than do the gatherings of the less exclusive American Association for the Advancement of Science. But the Academy meetings are by no means sideshows. With a membership limited to 300, the academy enrolls the cream of the nation's men of science. For three days last week this cream and a few distinguished visitors assembled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, read 45 papers in Eastman Lecture Room.
Universe. Belgium's Abbe Georges Lemaitre, astronomer and relativist,...