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Inspiring and Stimulating Lectures from Physics Nobel Laureate C N Yang
Nobel Laureate C N Yang delivered two public lectures in NTU at the invitation of Professor K K Phua, Chairman of World Scientific and Imperial College Press, who is also Director of the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at NTU. C N Yang is International Advisor of IAS. His nobility and tireless effort to inspire young minds are highly admirable.
 On 27 February, C N Yang presented an awe-inspiring talk titled, "An Interesting Parlor Game and Its Meaning" to an audience of NTU students and C N Yang scholars.
On 4 March, C N Yang spoke to a full-house of more than 1,000 audience at the Nanyang Auditorium about his reflections on returning to his roots in China, six years after moving to Tsinghua University. Dr K K Phua chaired the inspirational lecture and moderated the question and answer session.
C N Yang's reflections on his personal development as a physicist as well as the groundbreaking scientific theories of many important physicists, as narrated at the lectures, can be read in his book entitled, Selected Papers (1945-1980) of Chen Ning Yang (With Commentary), published by World Scientific.
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Authors' Presence Gives Book Sales a Boost
 They are luminaries from the world of physics - Murray Gell-Mann, Kenneth Wilson, C N Yang, Gerard 't Hooft. These four Nobel Laureates, together with many other eminent physicists were the plenary speakers of this conference held in honor of Murray Gell-Mann's 80th birthday.
With such a stellar speaker and participant line-up, World Scientific pulled all the stops to showcase its treasure trove of books on quantum mechanics, elementary particles, quantum cosmology and complexity in alignment with the conference theme.
 The conference also marked the opportune time to launch Murray Gell-Mann: Selected Papers edited by Harald Fritzsch of Ludwig-Maximilians University, who was also the chairman of the international organizing committee of this conference. Befitting the special occasion, this book emerged top as the best-selling title during the three-day conference. Prof Fritzsch's other published titles with World Scientific - Escape from Leipzig and The Fundamental Constants: A Mystery of Physics - had a remarkable showing, topping the best-selling chart too.
An interesting observation made on the book-buying trend at the conference is that the presence and appearance of Nobel Laureates and renowned physicists who are World Scientific's authors do drive sales and demands for their books. Playing with Planets authored by Nobel Laureate Gerard 't Hooft and Fundamental Forces of Nature: The Story of Gauge Fields by Kerson Huang of MIT enjoyed brisk and high sales. Younger academics, who were inspired to buy their books, were seen approaching Prof 't Hooft and Prof Huang to autograph the books. Other book titles by Prof 't Hooft, such as 50 Years of Yang-Mills Theory and Under the Spell of the Gauge Principle, received strong following from the conference participants.
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What was considered small for the allocated book exhibition area, measuring at about 5m x 3m, World Scientific made it up with its targeted marketing strategy, that is, promoting book titles that are highly relevant and related to the lecture themes of the day. For example, on the second and third days with lectures centering on particle physics, quantum mechanics and black holes, related book titles such as Did Time Begin? Will BooksTime End? Maybe the Big Bang Never Occured by Paul Frampton, plenary speaker at the conference; Path Integrals in Quantum Mechanics, Statistics, Polymer Physics, and Financial Markets, now in its fifth edition by Hagen Kleinert, another plenary speaker; and An Introduction to Black Holes, Information and the String Theory Revolution: The Holographic Universe by Susskind Leonard et al., were doing exceedingly well. High in the demand list were still the perennial classics of physics such as Quarks: Frontiers in Elementary Particle Physics by Nambu Yoichiro, and Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics by Martinus J G Veltman. Though Nambu and Veltman, both Nobel Laureates, were unable to attend the conference, evidence was strong that book sales at the conference was, after all, content-driven.
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