Issues

For a consistent formulation of quantum electrodynamics a theory must be found that treats time and space on an equal footing. The author describes his efforts and successes in this direction.

Some personal recollections of Ernest Rutherford and Ernest Lawrence in the period 1927–1939. Rutherford, who dominated the Cavendish Laboratory, gave his physicists a minimum of equipment hut a maximum of personal interest in their research. Lawrence developed the Radiation Laboratory into a prototype facility for research with large, expensive equipment. Both inspired others to produce and interpret nuclear reactions.

With new techniques rapidly increasing the storage of physics literature, we should limit information retrieval to critical review articles and data compilations despite the loss of author credit that might follow. A good review article makes obsolete much of the literature that it summarizes. But getting good reviews is a problem. To get more good ones, we should organize teams of writers encouraged by attractive honoraria.

Statistical mechanics aims at deriving from first principles an entropy theorem that guarantees approach to thermodynamic equilibrium. The theory for dilute gases initiated by Boltzmann and formalized by Bogolyubov has been recently completed. But efforts to include the three‐particle interactions in gases that are dense encounter intense difficulties.