Physics Today turns 75

“Physics Today is for the physicist, to inform him in comfortable, everyday language, of what goes on and why and who goes where. But it is also for the chemist, the biologist, and the engineer, to tell them of the science towards which they are driven by so many of their investigations; it is for the student, the teacher, the lawyer, the doctor, and all who are curious about physics; it is for administrative officials who deal with research; it is for editors and writers whose profession puts them midway between what is done and how it should be reported; it is for you, whatever reason brought you to this page.”

David Katcher, Physics Today’s first editor, wrote those words in May 1948 as part of his editorial introducing a new magazine. In those postwar days, concerns were growing that physics was becoming too specialized, too fractionated, and that the prominence and funding that flowed from the field’s wartime successes were accelerating the process. There was a call within the American Institute of Physics and its five member societies—the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America (now Optica), the Acoustical Society of America, the Society of Rheology, and the American Association of Physics Teachers—for a unifying influence to counter those forces. Thus was Physics Today born.

In the intervening years, physics—and the physical sciences more generally—has experienced staggering degrees of progress and change. Yet as we mark the magazine’s 75th anniversary this month, Katcher’s description still holds true.

The next several pages offer various lenses through which to appreciate how things have—and haven’t—changed over the past 75 years.

As much as Physics Today is about the physics, it is also about physicists. We strive to be a reminder of our commonalities as scientists, of the many interconnections among the varied disciplines, and of our shared priorities and concerns. Many of those concerns were extant at Physics Today’s debut, including research funding, public perceptions of science, the field’s (and its practitioners’) relationships with and responsibilities to society, the future of our planet, and how to prepare the next generation of scientist-citizens.

One part of Katcher’s description above is notably out of date, though. Physics Today has evolved into more than a magazine and can be found well beyond the printed page. We have a website, email newsletters, social media, and webinars, and we’ll continue to seek out and engage with our audiences wherever they may be.

We know that you, our readers, are busy yet curious, scientifically savvy yet unacquainted with the terminology and context of subfields too far from your own. With content that we hope you find appealing, accessible, and informative, Physics Today documents and reflects on the physics endeavor and its evolution, and it celebrates the diversity of the science and of the scientists.

Growth

In its first year, Physics Today went to some 7000 readers. That initial audience comprised the members of the five scientific societies that then belonged to the American Institute of Physics. Not only are those societies each much larger today, but there now are five more societies in the AIP federation—the American Crystallographic Association; the American Astronomical Society; the American Association of Physicists in Medicine; AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing; and the American Meteorological Society—bringing the magazine’s readership to more than 100 000.

Beyond the growth in the physics community, other metrics of the physical-sciences endeavor, including the number of journal articles, the number of prizes, and the level of government funding, are also sharply higher than they were 75 years ago. Public trust in science, though, is eroding. Those ups and downs remain a core part of our news coverage. And they attest to the continuing need to unite the field’s various disciplines and strengthen its engagement with broader society.

As interdisciplinary research has flourished and new fields of inquiry have emerged, Physics Today has striven to stay abreast of the expanding scope of the physical sciences. That may mean we report on some topics less often, but covering the full gamut of the physical sciences is an essential part of our mission to be a unifying influence. The difference in the words—and the densities—in these two word clouds, drawn from the titles of our published pieces in 1948 and in 2022, illustrate the diversification of the field and shifts within it.

Changing times, needs, and tools

Feature articles have always been at the core of Physics Today. The departments rounding out each issue have evolved to reflect shifts in our audience’s needs and information sources. When the community was smaller and communications speeds slower, meeting calendars, previews, and reports each had their day, as did news of job changes, honors, and awards. Other departments merged, split, or were renamed. Of the current lineup, some debuted rather recently; others go back to our very first year (see at right).

It will come as no surprise that the most dramatic shift has been the explosive growth of the internet. Content can now be published online as fast as it can be typed. But along with that capability has come ever-increasing competition for readers’ attention. In 2000 Physics Today’s website just posted manually produced HTML versions of each month’s magazine. Today it features a steady stream of online content that complements and supplements what appears in print.

Ads

Articles, news stories, and other editorial material aren’t the only content that informs readers about what’s going on in the community. So, too, do the advertisements. Ads from book publishers proliferated in the first decade and have been around ever since. The earliest issues also featured ads for surplus military optics from Edmund Salvage Corp (later Edmund Scientific) and for US savings bonds.

Ads depict not only the instrumentation and technology trends but also the job market and the field’s demographics. As the Cold War and space race heated up, for example, ads for the defense and aerospace industries burgeoned. The January 1968 issue, flush with ads, ran 192 pages long. For the first several decades, most recruitment ads assumed that candidates were male and almost all the scientists depicted in them were white. As part of Physics Today’s 70th anniversary commemoration, former senior editor Melinda Baldwin surveyed the ups and downs of the physics job market as told through the magazine’s display and classified ads (see “Physics Today ads track employment boom and bust ,” Physics Today online, 7 May 2018).

Special issues

Physics Today has occasionally developed all the feature articles in an issue to a specific topic. Here is a taste:

People

• ▶ Niels Bohr (October 1963 )

• ▶ A Memorial to Oppenheimer (October 1967 )

• ▶ Albert Einstein 1879–1955 (March 1979 )

• ▶ Richard Feynman (February 1989 )

• ▶ Andrei Sakharov (August 1990 )

• ▶ John Bardeen (April 1992 )

• ▶ Portraits of Fermi (June 2002 )

• ▶ Hans Bethe (October 2005 )

• ▶ John Archibald Wheeler (April 2009 )

• ▶ A Chandrasekhar Centennial (December 2010 )

Anniversaries

• ▶ Superconductivity (March 1986 )

• ▶ Centennial of the Michelson–Morley Experiment (May 1987 )

• ▶ Physical Review Centenary (October 1993 )

• ▶ X Rays 100 Years Later (November 1995 )

• ▶ The Ubiquitous Electron (October 1997 )

Education and careers

• ▶ Introductory Physics Education (March 1967 )

• ▶ Physics for the Nonscience Major (March 1970 )

• ▶ The Education of the Professional Physicist (June 1986 )

• ▶ Pre-college Education (September 1991 )

• ▶ Annual Careers Issues (October 2019 , 2020 , 2021 , 2022 )

Going broad, going deep

• ▶ Instrumentation (July 1967 )

• ▶ Astrophysics (March 1973 )

• ▶ Liquid Crystals (May 1982 )

• ▶ Fluids Out of Equilibrium (January 1984 )

• ▶ Helium-3 and Helium-4 (February 1987 )

• ▶ Nanoscale and Ultrafast Devices (February 1990 )

• ▶ The Physics of Digital Color (December 1992 )

• ▶ Physics and Biology (February 1994 )

• ▶ Everyday Physics (November 1999 )

• ▶ Planetary Diversity (April 2004 )

• ▶ Sound Affects (December 2020 )

The wider world

• ▶ Communicating Physics to the Public (November 1990 )

• ▶ Physics and the Environment (November 1994 )

• ▶ Radioactive Waste (June 1997 )

• ▶ The Physics Community and the Wider World (March 1999 )

• ▶ Physics and National Security (December 2000 )

• ▶ The Energy Challenge (April 2002 )

A valuable archive

Although Physics Today is not an archival journal, our content—and not just the feature articles—demonstrates lasting value. Our top 10 most-cited pieces (as reported by Crossref) span the years 1957–2004:

Stephen E. Harris, “Electromagnetically Induced Transparency ” (July 1997, page 36)

Frank S. Bates and Glenn H. Fredrickson, “Block Copolymers—Designer Soft Materials ” (February 1999, page 32)

Victor Twersky, review of Light Scattering by Small Particles by Hendrik C. Van de Hulst (December 1957, page 28)

Wojciech H. Zurek, “Decoherence and the Transition from Quantum to Classical ” (October 1991, page 36)

Kevin Noone, review of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics: From Air Pollution to Climate Change by John H. Seinfeld and Spyros N. Pandis (October 1998, page 88)

George Weiss, review of The Logic of Scientific Discovery by Karl R. Popper (November 1959, page 53)

Cees Dekker, “Carbon Nanotubes as Molecular Quantum Wires ” (May 1999, page 22)

George W. Crabtree, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, and Michelle V. Buchanan, “The Hydrogen Economy ” (December 2004, page 39)

William P. Reinhardt, review of Stochastic Processes in Physics and Chemistry by Nicolaas G. Van Kampen (February 1983, page 78)

Orlando Auciello, James F. Scott, and Ramamoorthy Ramesh, “The Physics of Ferroelectric Memories ” (July 1998, page 22)

The joy of physics

Although physics can be challenging and obscure, the quest for knowledge and the process of discovery can also be thrilling and inspiring. That wonder and satisfaction are worth celebrating—by both physicists and the public.

During the 2005 World Year of Physics, honoring the centennial of Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis, we embraced that celebration with gusto. Straying from our usual content mix, we also featured literature by Alan Lightman and John Updike, a contemplation on life’s meaning, correspondence and a speech by Einstein, and more.

We ran two music-themed articles as part of our World Year of Physics celebration. “A Physics Songbag ” (July 2005, page 56) featured 11 songs spanning more than 80 years and announced a lyric-writing contest; the winning entry was featured in “A Physics Songbag Redux ” (December 2005, page 56) along with “The Physics Today Rag.” Music first appeared in the magazine back in November 1948 (page 17), with the song “Take Away Your Billion Dollars ,” by physicist and composer Arthur Roberts, in which he satirized the push toward ever-bigger machines.