Professional kindnesses

In harkening back to life in physics 60 or more years ago, it is useful to look at the American Astronomical Society, whose membership today is about what American Physical Society membership was then.

Chatting recently with an astronomer friend, I was interested to learn that he regularly receives complimentary preprints or reprints from colleagues doing similar research. I cannot recall from my personal experience enjoying that particular form of collegial exchange, but it reminds me of a time when professional relationships were more personal, more cordial, and less competitive.

Preprint exchange strikes me as a social amenity that should be encouraged today to foster friendly personal and professional relationships. It should be a general practice to send preprints or reprints to anyone who has made a significant contribution to one’s work and is mentioned, or should have been mentioned, in the acknowledgments.