Dr. Maarten Schmidt, of Mt. Wilson and Palomar observatories and educated at Leiden University won the astronomy’s prestigious Helen B. Warner prize.

What is a quasar? Answers were almost as numerous as the astronomers who turned up at the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. New theories about the nature of “quasi-stellar sources” have only generated new arguments; new observations have only enlarged the uncertainty. About all…