Those well-intending workers, especially theorists, who have viewed hungrily the mixed valence problem, but have not yet made the bold leap, might be comforted to learn that the Rochester conference left the virginal state of that problem essentially intact. That is not to say that the event was prosaic. Indeed, the conferees exhibited a level of effervescence appropriate to the freshness and challenge of the problem at hand. If the meeting failed to solve major questions, it at least established several guidelines. One is that future experimental efforts, at least on a short time scale,...