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Historic Sites Initiative

The APS Historic Sites Initiative was created by the APS Executive Board in October 2004 with the following mission:

"The purpose of the Historic Sites initiative is to raise public awareness of physics. Unexpected encounters with an attractive plaque that identifies an important and interesting event in the history of physics will be an effective way of getting physics before the general public. The initiative will also benefit physicists by increasing their own awareness of important past scientific advances, hence of their membership in the historic evolution of their profession."

In pursuit of this mission, the Society has established the Historic Sites selection committee to evaluate potential historic physics sites in the United States. When a site is chosen, a ceremony is arranged at which a plaque is presented, often by a member of the APS Presidential line (the vice-President, President-elect, President, and past President are the members of the APS Presidential line).

Featured Physicists and Sites

Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
Bell Labs, Holmdel, NJ

Arthur Compton
Washington University, St. Louis, MO

Benjamin Franklin
The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, PA

Carl Anderson
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena CA

Ernest Lawrence and M. Stanley Livingston
University of California, Berkeley

Founding of the Physical Review
Cornell University, Ithaca New York

Henry Augustus Rowland
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Isidor Isaac Rabi
Columbia University, New York, NY

J. Willard Gibbs
Yale University, New Haven, CT

John Bardeen, William Shockley, Walter Brattain
Bell Laboratories, New York, NY

Joseph Henry
The Albany Academy, Albany, NY

MIT Radiation Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Michelson and Morley
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

Robert Millikan
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Upcoming Physicists and Sites

Ernest Rutherford
Montréal, Québec, Canada

Jefferson Laboratory
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

John Bardeen, Leon Cooper and J. Robert Schrieffer
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Categories of Eligible Sites

C1 sites, consisting of those sites with national or international significance to physics and its history
C2 sites, consisting of sites with more local significance

Eligible Sites Include:

those associated with an event or body of work, by one or more individuals, that changed the basic structure of the physics discipline in ways recognized internationally by the community of physicists (C1 site);
those associated with the life of an individual who significantly impacted physics and altered its historical development (C1 site);
those associated with the design of instruments and/or apparatus that set new standards internationally (C1 site);
those associated with an event, individual, group or institution that, by means of physics, had a significant impact on the locality (C2 site);
those associated with a new design of a physics research and/or instructional building that influenced the designs of future physics-related structures (C2 site).

Suggest a New Historic Site

Submit your suggestion for a new historic site

Selection Committee

John Rigden, Washington University, St. Louis (Chair)
Gordon Baym, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Katharine Gebbie, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gerald Holton, Harvard University
Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin.