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Enrico Fermi
A record of the Fermi Memorial symposium held April 29, 1955, in Washington, D.C., as a part of the Spring Meeting of the American Physical Society.
Physics at Columbia University: The genesis of the nuclear energy project
The following is a verbatim transcript of Enrico Fermi's last address before the American Physical Society, delivered informally and without notes at Columbia University's McMillin Theater on Saturday morning, January 30, 1954. His retiring presidential address was delivered one day earlier. The present speech, transcribed from a tape recording, is left deliberately in an unpolished and unedited form. Such informality would no doubt have been frowned upon by Fermi, who was very particular about his published writings. For those who knew Fermi or heard him speak, however, the verbatim transcript may serve (as no formal document could ever serve) to bring back for a moment the very sound of his voice. The paper was presented as part of the session “Physics at Columbia University” during the Society's 1954 annual meeting.
Government agencies can pay page charges
The Interdepartmental Committee on Scientific Research and Development of the Federal Government has studied the legal propriety and the practical desirability of payment by government agencies of page charges on the research reports submitted by their employees to scientific journals. A subcommittee report, accepted by the full Committee and transmitted by Chairman Alan Astin to the agencies, says in general that government agencies may and should pay such charges. This is especially interesting to physicists because the page‐charge plan was initiated by the American Physical Society and later enlarged and developed by the American Institute of Physics. The report is published herewith, not only because of its general interest but also for the specific information of agencies and their contractors.