Note from the Editor

In this issue of Physics and Society we start with News from the Forum.  Our Chair, Arian Pregenzer, announces the winners of the 2016 Joseph A. Burton Forum award and the Leo Szilard Lectureship Award.  In addition, we also announce our new Fellows chosen under the guidance of the Fellowship Committee led by Allen Sessoms.  Finally, we have an announcement of sessions that are sponsored by FPS at both the March and April APS meetings.

After the News section there is a letter to the Editor on climate change. Then, our first article is by Hannah Davinroy, an undergraduate physics major at Princeton University. She worked as an intern at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this summer and has written a note on new policies related to geomagnetic disturbances. David Hafemeister, who has had a long and distinguished association with the Forum has written an outstanding history of our activities from our origin in 1972 until today.  For those of you that don’t know all of the details, I urge you to read Dave’s article.  As part of his history, he reviews the origins of this newsletter and I am personally honored to be part of a long line of distinguished Editors that includes Martin Perl (1972-79), John Dowling (1980-86), Art Hobson (1987-1996), Al Saperstein (1997-2009), Jeff Marque (2003-2009) and Cameron Reed (2009-2013). Finally, we end with a book review, Greg Craven’s, What’s the Worst That Could Happen?  A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate.

As always, I am looking for people that would like to publish articles of interest to our readership. Please let me know if you or one of your colleagues would like to submit an article for an upcoming newsletter.

Happy reading,
Andrew Zwicker, azwicker@princeton.edu