The undergraduate and the American Institute of Physics

The American Institute of Physics, now in its twentieth year, has from its inception been concerned with the general welfare of physicists. It has specifically assumed the responsibilities of encouraging, of coordinating, of stimulating, conserving, and developing their activities; of safeguarding their professional status; and of informing the policy‐making groups of government, industry, and education of the contribution that physics and physicists can make to the well‐being of the nation, both in times of armed neutrality and of war. Some parts of this program have been accomplished by the concerted efforts of small groups of members acting on temporary or continuing committees, others by the broad program of publication that the Institute has sponsored. The present uneasy international situation, recurring military necessities, the increasing technological bias of civilization in those parts of the world that possess high standards of living, and the manifold potential uses of nuclear energy have combined to place upon physicists a present value which, even if somewhat exaggerated in the popular mind, nevertheless compensates in part for the comparative obscurity in which they languished during the first forty years of the century. Another consequence of these same factors is that the traditional concept of the solitary research physicist has been swept away entirely. In his place there is now a team of which each member, from the most brilliant to the most humble, plays his appointed part. It is, therefore, not only a natural activity but a bounden duty of the Institute to concern itself with the problem of maintaining the necessary flow of physicists at all levels of competence and of adjusting the flow to the probable future demand.