Something wasn't quite right about the photograph of the class of 1970 Silver Knight winners.

Standing front and center: a cute little boy in double-breasted suit, complete with a pocket handkerchief, holding a trophy and certificate. At 4-feet tall, he didn't come close to reaching the shoulders of the teenage winners around him.

But he had the same wide toothy grin spread across his face as the rest of the winners.

That smile was all for his big brother, Paul Steinhardt, who'd just won the Silver Knight for General Scholarship. Paul had to miss the ceremony because he was in Tennessee competing for a national science award. He'd picked his younger brother as a stand-in that evening because "he had the fearlessness to take on the job.''

''I remember every two minutes I was fidgeting in my seat,'' said Charles Steinhardt, who was 10 at the time.

Their mother, Helen, and sisters yelled as Paul's name was called.

''I raced up,'' said Charles, now 47 and an information technology consultant. ``I couldn't wait. I knew I was representing my brother. It made me feel so connected with the family. I also was aware how awesome it was.''

The presenter had to bend down to give Charles the statue.

'He said, `Congratulations, you should be really proud of your brother,' '' Charles Steinhardt recalled. ``I looked at the audience in the huge, huge auditorium and everyone was applauding.

``I remember feeling so proud of him because I knew there were really smart people.''

Charles got to stay up late that night to deliver the good news to his brother.

''It was neat,'' Paul Steinhardt, 55, said of winning the award.

Today, Paul, 55, is a theoretical physicist at Princeton University.

He is the Albert Einstein Professor in Science and co-authored the book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang, looking at whether the big bang was really the beginning of the universe.

The Silver Knight statue sits in his home office.

''I didn't think about trying to win a Silver Knight,'' he said. ``I tried to use high school to try out lots of possibilities, explore lots of interests.''

Those studies included creative writing, language, math and summers spent in research labs.

''I was essentially trying to find out more about myself, just trying to do that to the best of my ability,'' Paul Steinhardt said. ``The recognition for Silver Knight was very nice. I tried to just do my best. If it was worthy of a Silver Knight, that was great.''