Physicists are now searching for new and alternative paths for the progress of their profession through the many problems surfacing in the 1970's. During the golden years of the last decade, we in the academic world felt secure and self‐contained; we did physics and we taught physics. But the growing cutbacks in funds and in job opportunities have caused us to re‐evaluate our personal goals, our responsibility to the larger society and our interactions with governmental, industrial and educational institutions. The business of training physicists is no longer a viable support for the avocation of doing physics. An obvious solution to these problems is for the academic physicist to offer his talent to a wider market, to move into physics‐related fields, to engage in interdisciplinary efforts to solve current social, economic and scientific problems and to offer training that will prepare students for physics‐related jobs.
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October 1973
October 01 1973
Preparing students for physics‐related jobs Available to Purchase
To keep pace with the changing times, physics departments should offer courses and major curricula in interdisciplinary fields as well as encourage more applied research.
Physics Today 26 (10), 23–29 (1973);