In September, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named as its fellows 24 individuals, ranging from a trombonist to a paleoethnobotanist to a cosmologist. Among those honored are four with backgrounds related to physics: Paul Ginsparg, Charles Steidel, Brian Tucker, and Paul Wennberg. The nearly two-decade-old fellowship program is giving each winner a $500 000 unrestricted grant for the next five years.
Ginsparg, who holds a joint appointment at Cornell University as a professor in both the physics department and the faculty of computing and information science, is widely known for creating, while a research staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the e-print archive currently hosted by the Cornell University Library at http://arXiv.org. His document server, says the foundation, “represents a conscious effort to reorganize scientific communications, establishing a marketplace of ideas of new submissions with minimal editorial oversight and abundant opportunity for commentary, supporting...
