Note From the Editor

This issue is my last as Editor and it is bittersweet. It was my delight to serve and I am so grateful for the opportunity. For the past three years, we have published a wide range of original articles on nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, energy, science advocacy, and more. None of that happens without the tremendous assistance of my Editorial Board, the Assistant Editor Laura Berzak Hopkins along with Maury Goodman, Richard Wiener and Jeremiah Williams. They read everything, identified authors for future submissions, and overall made this job much easier than I thought possible. Our Book Review Editor, Art Hobson, was a rock of consistency by providing two already edited reviews for each and every issue. Matt Parsons, our Social Media Editor, served two roles, both expanding our readership through announcements on various electronic forums, and by contributing to the editing of the articles, all while finishing his undergraduate degree, receiving a Fulbright Fellowship and preparing to start his PhD studies. Finally, the tremendous team at APS led by Leanne Poteet took care of the layout and distribution with the utmost professionalism and grace. I can not thank each of these people enough.

In this issue, there are articles on both science advocacy and the ambiguities of Werner Heisenberg’s role in Germany’s atomic weapon program during World War II. First, Professor Joel Primack, the 2016 Leo Szilard Award recipient who has spent many years involved in “public interest science,” writes about his experiences helping to start this Forum and the Congressional Science Fellowship. Next, Gregory Mack of APS writes about his view of advocacy that we, as the scientific community, can do today. Professor Klaus Gottstein takes us through his analysis of Heisenberg’s activities and his interpretation of the motivations behind them while Professor David C. Cassidy provides a brief comment to put these ambiguities into perspective. As always, we end the newsletter with two book reviews, one on geoengineering, the other on the geophysicist Marion Hubbert.

My successor as Editor is Professor Oriol Valls from the University of Minnesota, a Fellow of the APS and a long-time member of this Forum. The newsletter is in great hands under his guidance and I look forward to reading and contributing to future issues. The hardest part of this job is finding authors to contribute material, please send your ideas to him directly, otvalls@umn.edu.

Happy Reading,

Andrew Zwicker
azwicker@princeton.edu

These contributions have not been peer-refereed. They represent solely the view(s) of the author(s) and not necessarily the view of APS.