Inflation and physics

The physics community, which has had to live with higher costs and reduced federal funds in the past, is feeling the effects of an accelerated inflation. Major national laboratories report that increases in standard equipment costs this year are about three times those of past years. Suppliers of physics educational equipment say they can maintain their normal rate of price increase only with difficulty. Physics students will have to pay higher academic charges this year, and physics graduates are being offered higher competitive salaries. As it has in the past, the government is trying to stem the inflation by cutting federal expenditures in the midst of the fiscal year. President Johnson has directed federal agencies to defer their commitments during the current year, an order bound to affect broad areas of physics funding.