From the Editor

In several editorials last year we have remarked that we would turn soon to our correspondence. In spite of our repeated invi-tations for letters it is still a small correspondence; perhaps half a dozen critical letters. (We do not plan to discuss here the noncritical letters, although we appreciate them just as much as the critical ones.) So far these letters have dealt with four principal subjects: comments on format, comments on content, comments on terminology and units (in particular the use of the metric system), and finally a few comments concerning scientists and engineers. Let us consider these subjects in turn. We will quote occasional passages from our mail.

There have been a few remarks about our use of filler material. " I bind my journals and I hate to think tha t I am binding in this extraneous material along with the timeless material." Your Editor also saves his back journals; in fact he cannot afford to have them bound, so he saves them entire, even including the advertisements. At such times as he has pondered the injustice of this arrangement he has usually concluded that even among the contributed scientific papers of undoubted worth in his back journals there are a rather large number tha t he didn't read when the journal was new, tha t he doesn't plan to read later, and that in all probability he never will read; and yet there they are, occupying space on the bookshelf. Not everything that we devour is palatable, nutritive, or even digestible, and some roughage supposedly helps. Your Editor can only admire those austere and ascetic scholars among us who wish to deny and exclude the trivial and nonessential; they are scientific monks and most of us are but poor sinners.

We mentioned once before that we were trying, as an experi-ment, to start each article on a right-hand page. The filler mate-rial has been largely used to fill the gaps that then occur between articles. We felt vindicated in this policy when, at a recent meeting of the Publications Board of the American Insti tute of Physics, it was announced that a cost analysis had been run on the relative merit of starting each article on a right-hand page compared to the present system in AIP journals of beginning on either page but then having to reset the left-handed articles when preparing reprints (which provide a substantial portion of the journals' operating income). The cost analysis indicated the Institute would be ahead if they began articles on the right-hand side, even if a few left-handed pages in each issue were then left blank. If it offends you tha t an occasional page of filler occupies space on your shelf, how will you react to these blank pages? As material for the filler we have our University and Industry Columns, Book Reviews, Meeting Reports, Patents Reviews,

30 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 2, No. 1 / January 1963

timeless editorials such as this, and our news notes, pictures, squibs, and quiddities concerning optics people, and events. There are those who assert that the presence of some such mate-rial in the same journal as genuine scientific papers somehow de-tracts or degrades the worth of those papers. We are aware that a sense of proportion and moderation is required here. When we attend a scientific meeting some go just to hear papers and to rejoice in the science of it all but most of us also enjoy seeing and talking to our friends and colleagues and some of us even oc-casionally smile. Suffice it to note that for every one of you who wants none of this material there appear to be many more who find it interesting.

A few readers have not liked the use of pictures as fillers. Too much like Physics Today. Your Editor himself happens to be rather fond of Physics Today so that this particular analogy somewhat eludes him. Let us digress a moment and consider certain more "popular" or less "technical" journals: Physics Today, American Scientist, Sky and Telescope, Scientific American. There are many more, but these are the ones that we often read. Scientific American, we would say, is popularizing science, and is aimed at the lay audience rather than the technical audience. American Scientist deals more with the general trends and philosophical undercurrents of science. I t is aimed at the scien-tific audience although it does not delve into the technical depths of any one discipline. I t emphasizes the philosophic, rather than the professional aspects of scientists. Journals such as Sky and Telescope and Physics Today at tempt to evoke our professional spirit, and hence the meeting reports, book reviews, and many pictures of personalities and events of one profession. I t is possible to be an excellent scientist and feel no professional responsibilities. Most of us, however, feel a kinship with our fellow workers, and out of this feeling grow professional societies, which in turn serve the profession in various ways such as by publishing journals. We feel tha t these filler pictures of optics people and events in Applied Optics help to identify optics as a profession, and these same pictures, if they appeared in, say, Physics Today, would not do this. If you have informal snap-shots of colleagues or events that should appeal to our audience, lend them to us.

One or two have remarked that some of the columns favor one side of controversial issues or one man's personal views. If you would read the fine print above these columns you will see tha t reader contributions and suggestions are invited, and news material is welcomed from whatever source. In those columns that are signed (such as this one) any opinions are certainly those of the writer; if they happen to differ from your opinions why not let us know. (Let us try, however, to confine ourselves more or less to optical matters.) In this Editorial column we feel dis-posed to try to say something: we have opinions and this journal has a purpose, a raison d'être which we wish to discuss here.

JOHN N. HOWARD