Swiss Acropolis

On normal days, Switzerland's Zurich is a calm, peaceful city which some visitors find monotonous. But last week Zurich was in a festive mood. Its great Federal Institute of Technology was 100 years old, and thousands of scholars and statesmen had come from all over the world to celebrate. There was a gala banquet for 3,000 guests, including Swiss President Max Petitpierre, Architect Frank Lloyd Wright and Nobel Chemist Peter Debye. There was a concert by the Tonhalle Orchestra, a torchlight parade by the students. To the Swiss, the institute fully deserves such honors. They call it "The Acropolis of Zurich."

The only national university in the country (the others are supported by their cantons), FIT is actually one of the most international of universities. "Like Swiss cooking," says former Rector Franz Tank, "the Poly is a mixture of influences." From France's Ecole Polytechnique, it took its accent on basic theory and its heavy emphasis on mathematics. From Germany, it got its thoroughness and its doctorate system. Its early faculty was an ingathering from all Europe. Switzerland's famed Historian Jakob Burckhardt taught there; so did Italian Literary Historian Francesco De Sanctis and the German authority on esthetics, Friedrich Vischer.

Vitamins & Hormones. The institute's engineering graduates built Switzerland's railway system and its hydroelectric plants. Alumnus Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X rays; Alumnus O. H. Ammann built the George Washington Bridge; Maurice Koechlin helped put up the Eiffel Tower. German Physicist Rudolf Clausius stated the second law of thermodynamics (heat cannot pass of itself from a colder to a hotter body); Aurel Stodola pioneered in the field of thermal machinery; and Caltech's Fritz Zwicky is now one of the world's top experts on rockets.

Over the years, the institute has had eight Nobel Prizewinners on its faculty. The most famous: Albert Einstein, who was also a student (1896-1900). Of the eight, two still remain on the faculty: Wolfgang Pauli, whose "Pauli Principle"* helped describe atomic structure; and Yugoslav-born Leopold Ruzicka, who first artificially produced a sex hormone.

Technology & Life. Today the institute's 2,650 students carry on their studies on 50 acres overlooking Zurich's main business district. To get in, each must have a thorough command of French or German besides his native tongue, and many have to take a full year of special preparation to pass the entrance exams. Once in, each student chooses one of eleven schools in accordance with his specialty. But each must take six semesters mainly devoted to the basic sciences, as well as one "general" subject in the humanities.

The liberal arts electives have been for 100 years a basic part of the institute's education. Though the nation depends on the school to do its practical work, FIT has never wavered from the Einstein theory that "concern for man himself and his fate must always be the chief interest of all technological endeavors." To this, Rector Karl Schmid adds his own amen: "I believe that the real value of technology can come to the front only when its all-embracing rationalism is bridled by a deep respect for life. Its real and true value is subservience to life."

*"An entirely nondegenerate energy level is already 'closed' if it is occupied by a single electron."

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