Is it possible, as Margot claims, to attend first-class graduate lecture series for free in Paris?

Yes. The Collège de France, a five-hundred-year-old institution located right next to the Sorbonne, has offered free lectures open to all since it was founded by François première in 1530. “Free” normally infers mediocrity, but that is not the case here—just the opposite: the Collège de France is usually regarded as France’s foremost research institute, and a professorship there is highly prestigious. Nor are the lectures always in French; they are usually in English if the lecturer is not a fluent French speaker.

The accompanying photograph, taken when the author recently attended a lecture there, illustrates both of these points: the title (in English) is “The Higgs Mode and Quantum Criticality in Condensed Matter”—second in a series of ten lectures on a topic that is at the cutting edge of science, and the professor, Assa Auerbach (shown at left), is a leading theoretical physicist in the field.

Nor is the audience response unchallenging, such as guest lecturers normally receive—following this presentation, there was a vigorous but objective interchange of the type that characterizes good science.