AIP in 1972—Planning for the future

The temptation to affix characteristic labels to a report of a year immediately past is too great to be denied. The Annual Reports of the American Institute of Physics bear such labels: 1968 was a year of “a nation in transition”; 1969 was a year of “too few employment opportunities”; in 1970 we saw “economic turmoil for science”; 1971 was remembered for “sobering reflection.” What of 1972? What followed the recognition of the employment crisis, where did the economic turmoil leave us, and what was the result of the sobering reflection? As the accompanying Report will show. AIP in all its many programs has turned from reflection on the difficulties of the immediate past and can characterize 1972 as the year of “Planning for the future.”