From the Editor

Good news: we are getting some controversy stirred up. The article by Lieber and Press in the last issue has generated one reply article, by Frank von Hippel plus two letters to the Editor, one of which is by Alvin Saperstein, who also wrote an article on that issue. I hope our good luck continues.

For several reasons, most of them troubling, the issues of nuclear proliferation and disarmament are becoming of great current interest again. We have in this issue two articles on the topic: one is by Ted Postol, a well-known arms control expert from MIT. Because of the importance of this article. I have given it a very major exemption of the length limit rules. My acquaintance with Ted goes very far back to the time when he was doing academic Physics, trying to figure out how to obtain neutron scattering results from ³He without turning the sample into ⁴He too fast. The second article on North Korea is by Prof. Bell, a political scientist who knows how to talk to Physics audiences: I met him when he gave a Physics Colloquium in my Department. We also have articles on the Mather congressional Fellowship program for undergraduates (I owe this one to Tabitha Colter, our Media editor) and on innovations in Physics teaching, which comes via Laura Berzak Hopkins.

We also have some news for you: the Forum is organizing a session on arms control at the APS April meeting. One of the speakers is Ted Postol and the other two will have articles in the July issue.

Remember again that this newsletter is dependent on contributions obtained largely by the readers and members of the Forum and their friends. My definition of what is an appropriate topic is very broad: we past issues, particularly October 2017, for some specifics.

Oriol

Oriol T. Valls
University of Minnesota
otvalls@umn.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.