From the Editor At long last Applied Optics has become a reality . . . but the

labors of launching this journal have been greatly alleviated by the enthusiasm of everyone we asked to help: feature editors, column and geographic reporters, reviewers, referees. All of these have responded with cheerful willingness. But most heartening of all has been the response from contributors because this has justified our belief that such a publication is needed. Papers started to come in last May and have continued to do so in an overwhelming but very welcome stream. The featured subject of our first issue has doubtless helped; optical pumping is a new and exciting area of optics: yet many of the authors who have had papers accepted for publication herein are publishing their work for the first time in an OSA journal. We want them to stay with us and to bring their friends. One of the aims of Applied Optics is to bring (back) together the many workers in the fringe fields of optics who have no real publishing home.

Par t of each issue will be devoted to the feature subject but only part; we emphasize this because, perhaps, our original publicity did not make sufficiently clear that each issue would contain papers in any of the broad areas of applied optics, in disciplines related to optics and employing optical techniques, as well as in the featured subject. I t is our intention that a topic will be introduced in each issue and highlighted by a review (the lead) article. A feature editor for each topic will become a part of our repertoire.

Let us be the first to admit that this first issue is not a good example of our intentions! So many papers were submitted on optical pumping, and they were so timely, that we decided to give pride of place to them in January. Even so, we have as many optical maser papers again ready for publication, and these will appear in the forthcoming numbers.

Your Editor is new at the game of editing; he will probably make many mistakes. He is painfully aware of the deficiencies in his own knowledge of optics and he hopes to lean on many other people for help and advice. He is also not particularly trained or disposed to write bi-monthly sermons in this space; he may yield it occasionally to a Feature Editor of greater wisdom. The experiences of the past year of organizing this journal and debating its why and wherefore have uncovered a variety of possible topics for future editorials. Let us mention a few, so that you may communicate your sentiments to us about them, if you will:

Our first and primary concern is tha t we do not infringe on the domain of our sister publication the Journal of the Optical Society of America. And before we say anything further we want to express to Deane B. Judd, Editor of J. Opt. Soc. Am., a sincere appreciation of all he has done over the past few months to help the birth of Applied Optics, in the form of including a section in his Journal, comments on his editorial page, his suggestions to authors re publishing in Applied Optics, and his helpful advice on many points that were new to us. We do not think it out of context here to say a word of thanks to Wallace R. Brode, President of OSA last year; this journal has benefited from his long experience as the Editor of J. Opt. Soc. Am. and the advice and active help he gave us during 1961. When we first drew up a tentative scope for this journal, we included all aspects of applied optics, including physiological optics, but when we polled the membership of the Society in July 1960 the one (and only) substantial group that was cool or indifferent to the idea of a second journal was the color-vision-physiological category. Since the Editor of J. Opt. Soc. Am. himself is a color man we have more or less resolved that we would make no incursions in that area but would concentrate

on making Applied Optics a home for those optical papers that had been appearing in journals of other disciplines. Our feeling is that, after a few issues, our character will emerge, and then we shall be able to find our proper modus vivendi with J. Opt. Soc. Am. Dr. Judd has stated his point of view clearly in the October 1961 issue of J. Opt. Soc. Am.

Our next concern is our relationships with our cousin journals within the American Institute of Physics' family, and also with other standard journals. Another question is how inter­national should a national society's publication be; how large should be the proportion of articles in foreign languages, par­ticularly Russian—and it must not be forgotten that com­munication is a two-way process; we want foreign workers to read Applied Optics as much as we want to read their work. Should such foreign-language papers be kept to a minimum, such as an occasional fine meal in a foreign restaurant, or should we make an effort to welcome them all? Should we attempt to impose "correct" terminology on our contributors, as the Editor of J. Opt. Soc. Am. has been trying to do? Readers will notice that we prefer authors to use the metric system. Can we accept review, historical, or tutorial articles in other than the featured subject and remain an original-content journal? Your com­ments concerning these matters or any features or departments that you particularly like or dislike will be much appreciated.

JOHN N. HOWARD

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Per volume of six issues per year

OSA members $ 6.00 Other AIP societies' members $ 8.00

Non-members and libraries $10.00 Single copies $ 2.00

Subscriptions should be addressed to APPLIED OPTICS, Sub­scription Handling, American Institute of Physics, 335 East 45th Street, New York, New York.

86 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 1, No. 1 / January 1962