Issues

Are cosmic rays really cosmic, pervading all space; or are they limited to galaxies such as our Milky Way; or do they originate within the solar system? In the August, 1949 issue of Physics Today, Edward Teller favored the latter theory; the author of the present article surveys the situation and comes to a different conclusion.

Caught between an inescapable and growing involvement in social issues of the day and a longstanding tradition of professional isolationism, scientists have come to realize that habits of objective analysis are a blunt tool for attacking problems of social origin. A philosopher of science, the author finds here an analogy between the questings of research and of a society in transition to suggest an ethical conception which has meaning in both. He writes that there is no turning back of the clock; that “science can no longer be free from society; but it can be free along with society.”

A sense of humor and love for the subject are among the basic virtues of the physics teacher writes the author, who has both. He gives a few of his ideas on the subject here.

Like its prominent representative C.M.G. Lattes, physics in Brazil is young

Conference at the University Of Missouri

Thanksgiving Meeting of the American Physical Society

Wind tunnels: built, building, and planned

Held at Signal Corps Engineering Labs

Celsius, centésimale, and centigrade

Acoustical Society meets

150th Anniversary of Connecticut Academy

Physicists honored in Great Britain; Medal of the University of Liége

Crystallized; New officers; Responsible.

Institute of Photography; Technical information services; Raytheon