American Physical Society

The **American Physical Society** (**APS**) is the world's second largest organization of physicists. The Society publishes more than 12 scientific journals, including the _Physical Review_ and _Physical Review Letters_. It organizes more than 20 science meetings each year. APS is a member society of the American Institute of Physics.

## History

The American Physical Society began on May 20, 1899, when a group of 36 physicists met at Columbia University to set up a society "to advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics". At the start the APS only held scientific meetings. In 1913 it took over the _Physical Review,_ which had begun in 1893 at Cornell University. The _Physical Review_ was followed by _Reviews of Modern Physics_ in 1929 and by _Physical Review Letters_ in 1958.

The APS is now active in public and governmental affairs, and in the international physics community. It has programs in education, science outreach (specifically Physics Outreach), and media relations. APS has about 50,000 members. In 1999, APS Physics celebrated 100 years with the biggest-ever physics meeting in Atlanta. In 2005, APS took the lead role in United States participation in the World Year of Physics. It started several programs to publicize physics during the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's annus mirabilis. Einstein@Home, is still an ongoing and popular distributed computing project.

## APS journals

The American Physical Society publishes 13 research journals and a news and commentary website _Physics_.
- _Physical Review Letters_ (PRL)
- _Reviews of Modern Physics_ (RMP)
- _Physical Review A_ (PRA): Atomic, molecular and optical physics.
- _Physical Review B_ (PRB): Condensed matter and materials physics.
- _Physical Review C_ (PRC): Nuclear physics.
- _Physical Review D_ (PRD): Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology.
- _Physical Review E_ (PRE): Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.
- _Physical Review X_ (PRX): Open access; pure, applied, and interdisciplinary physics.
- _Physical Review Applied_ (PRApplied): Experimental and theoretical applications of physics.
- _Physical Review Fluids_ (PRFluids): Fluid dynamics.
- _Physical Review Accelerators and Beams_ (PRAB): Open access; accelerator science and technology.
- _Physical Review Physics Education Research_ (PRPER): Open access; experimental and theoretical research on physics education.
- _Physical Review Materials_ (PRMaterials): A broad-scope international journal for the multidisciplinary community engaged in research on materials.

All members of APS receive the monthly publication _Physics Today_, published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

## Prizes and awards

The American Physical Society gives out a number of awards including the Andrei Sakharov Prize (APS) for outstanding leadership, Aneesur Rahman Prize for Computational Physics, Arthur L. Schawlow Prize in Laser Science, Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, Lars Onsager Prize in theoretical statistical physics, and more.

## Other websites

- Official American Physical Society website
- Bulletin of the American Physical Society  — freely available scientific abstracts presented at general meetings and various unit meetings of APS Physics.
- Finding Aid to the Records of the American Physical Society , 1899-1989 at the Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics
- Finding Aid to the American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics Archives , 1946-1991, Special Collections, Linderman Library, Lehigh University

## Infobox (organization)

- **name**: American Physical Society
- **abbreviation**: APS
- **type**: Scientific
- **purpose**: To advance and diffuse the knowledge of physics
- **location**: American Center for Physics
College Park, MD, College Park, Maryland, United States
- **membership**: 50,000
- **website**: http://www.aps.org/