Fine’s efforts contributed greatly toward making Princeton the site of Albert Einstein’s first North American lectures, and eventually his home.

As a result, Fine was among a small group of highly talented undergraduates whom McCosh invited to his house for informal seminars and nurtured as future faculty.

However, the young faculty whom McCosh had nurtured, including Fine, and their allies on the Board of Trustees grew restive and pushed him out in favor of Wilson in 1902.

The addition of this large number of young, enthusiastic junior faculty had a significant impact on the quality, focus and seriousness of Princeton at both the undergraduate and graduate school levels.

Because Wilson lacked interest in science and mathematics, he delegated the preceptor appointments to Fine, giving him the opportunity to transform Princeton's programs in those fields.

In the 1920s, Fine was particularly successful in raising money from the General Education Board and Rockefeller Foundation to support Princeton’s growing science programs.

In response, his close friend and wealthy Princeton Trustee, Thomas D. Jones, funded construction of Fine Hall, arguably the finest mathematics building in the country.

[3] Finished in 1931, Fine Hall served as the first home of the new Institute of Advanced Study [2], and of its most distinguished faculty member, Albert Einstein, until its separate building was completed in 1939.

The other founding faculty member, and the person who convinced the funders to situate the IAS in Princeton, was Oswald Veblen, one of Fine’s original preceptors.

Whereas he had been drawn to Germany for his PhD in the 1880s, shortly after his death, Princeton University and the Institute of Advanced Study surpassed Göttingen as the world’s center of mathematical physics.