Reports on Subfields of Physics: Gravitation, Cosmology and Cosmic‐Ray Physics

In 1982 the Astronomy Survey Committee, under the direction of George Field, published Astronomy and Astrophysics in the 1980s (see PHYSICS TODAY, April 1982, page 96, and November 1982, page 25), a report similar in purpose to the current Brinkman report. Gravitation, cosmology and cosmic‐ray physics were then, properly, considered as subfields of astrophysics. But these three fields, because they are concerned with the nature of the fundamental forces and constituents of matter, are also of direct interest to physicists. For this reason one volume of the Brinkman report is devoted to recounting the achievements in and identifying goals for the related fields of gravitation, cosmology and cosmic‐ray physics.