The fourth dimension in science education

In the March 1960 issue of Physics Today there was a letter to the editor written by David Redfield of Fairview Park, Ohio. The first part of this letter reads as follows: “The symposium papers in the January issue of Physics Today deal with the role of the physicist in a number of industries. When considered together with other similar articles, they represent a widespread desire for more physicists to direct their efforts toward a multitude of related fields. In view, however, of a small number of physicists in this country (the first article in the same issue indicates that there are less than 20 000), these papers raise a question of paramount importance to physics and, ultimately, to these other fields as well, ‘What about physics?’ That is to say, if physicists shift into the many neighboring fields in response to the demands from these fields, who will be left to do physics?”

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