Aims and Scope
- Details
- Published on 12 June 2012
The purpose of this journal is to catalyse, foster, and disseminate an awareness and understanding of the historical development of ideas in contemporary physics, and more generally, ideas about 'how Nature works'.
This is the only journal to address the history of physics primarily from the physics and physicists' perspective. Being an integral part of a core physics publishing platform, it is intended to support physicists in their quest to reflect on, understand, and improve their own discipline. It is also intended to promote fruitful interaction between working physicists and historians of sciences.
Articles may therefore vary significantly in type, level and amount of technical discussion that is required to convey precise meaning to the respective communities. However, contributors are advised that comprehensive and lucid non-technical introductions and summaries should be provided for readers.
All papers will be published in English. Both regular articles and reviews will be considered.
The scope explicitly includes:
- Contributions addressing the history of physics and of physical ideas and concepts, especially those that illuminate or add to our understanding of modern physics.
- Careful analysis of recent physics history that chronicles and interprets significant shifts in the field.
- The historical development of physics in concert with adjacent disciplines such as mathematics, natural sciences, and philosophy of science.
- Studies of the historical development of physics and its connection to public policy (i.e., funding paradigms, educational structure changes, national research agendas, international cooperative frameworks, etc.)
- The development of experimental ideas and designs, and the role of technology development in physics discoveries.
- Annotated and historically contextualised translations of relevant non-English-language texts.
- Careful characterisations of abandoned ideas including past mistakes and false leads, thereby helping working physicists contemplate whether current ideas may suffer the same fates
The scope explicitly excludes:
- New forefront research results from the various physics subdisciplines.
- Essays primarily devoted to addressing questions within the philosophy of science discipline.
