A Brief
History
The American Physical Society was founded on
May 20, 1899, when 36 physicists gathered at Columbia University for
that purpose. They proclaimed the mission of the new Society to be
"to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics", and in
one way or another the APS has been at that task ever since. In the
early years, virtually the sole activity of the APS was to hold
scientific meetings, initially four per year. In 1913, the APS took
over the operation of the Physical Review, which had been founded in
1893 at Cornell, and journal publication became its second major
activity. The Physical Review was followed by Reviews of Modern
Physics in 1929, and by Physical Review Letters in 1958. Over the
years, Phys Rev has subdivided into five separate sections as the
fields of physics proliferated and the number of submissions grew.
In more recent years, the activities of the Society have
broadened considerably. Stimulated by the increase in Federal
funding in the period after the second World War, and even more by
the increased public involvement of scientists in the nineteen
sixties, the APS is active in public and governmental affairs, and
in the international physics community. In addition, the Society
conducts extensive programs in education, public outreach, and media
relations. The APS has fourteen divisions and nine topical groups
covering all areas of physics research,. There are six forums that
reflect the interest of its 43,000 members in broader issues, and
eight sections organized by geographical region.
In 1999, the
APS celebrated its Centennial with the biggest-ever physics meeting
in Atlanta, and in 2005 the APS will take a lead role in US
participation in the World Year of
Physics. |