The first National Research Council survey of physics, completed in 1966 by a committee headed by George E. Pake of Xerox, consisted of two thin volumes. The second survey was produced in 1972 by another NRC panel, this time under the chairmanship of D. Allan Bromley of Yale University. It filled four books. This month another Research Council committee, under the leadership of William F. Brinkman of Sandia National Laboratory, issues its survey, Physics Through the 1990s, in eight volumes: an overview and seven panel reports covering subfields of physics. (Highlights from the seven reports begin on page 28.) In itself, the expansion of the physics survey is telling. Physics is flourishing—intellectually and experimentally. Brinkman proclaims this in his preface: “These volumes document a physics enterprise that is vital, creative and productive.”
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April 1986
April 01 1986
A Celebration of Physics Available to Purchase
A new survey of contemporary physics finds the field brimming with excitement and activity but laments the lack of young researchers and modern instruments.
Physics Today 39 (4), 22–27 (1986);