APS March Meeting Returns to St. Louis in 1996

The 1996 APS March Meeting will be returning to St. Louis, Missouri, the site of the very successful 1989 meeting. St. Louis is known as the "Gateway to the West", an idea commemorated by its famous 630 foot high arch along the banks of the Mississippi river. The complete announcement is published in this issue of APS Meeting News.

In 1989 there were over 4,400 attendees, 75 invited symposia, and almost 3,300 contributed papers. In 1996, planners expect 5,000 attendees, over 90 invited symposia, and 4,500 contributed papers, for what appears to be the largest physics meeting in the world. The meeting focuses mainly on condensed matter and materials physics, but there is a large component of chemical physics (both gas and solid phase) and biological physics. The Division of High Polymer Physics holds its annual meeting in conjunction with the March Meeting, and there will also be programming on physics education, instrumentation, fluid dynamics, and computational physics.

The newly formed Forum on Industrial and Applied Physics will be providing programming for the first time in 1996. There will also be programming provided by the Forum on History of Physics, the Forum on Physics and Society, and the Forum on International Physics. The Committee on the Status of Women in Physics and the Committee on Minorities in Physics will also sponsor sessions.

One of the main features of the March Meeting in recent years is the tutorials offered on the Sunday (17 March, this year), before the meeting convenes. Eight four-hour courses will be offered. The cost is $75 for members and nonmembers, and $25 for students, including graduate students. All courses will take place at the Adam's Mark Hotel the Headquarters hotel.

The morning section features a course on cryogenic engineering, another on -fundamental magnetic and magneto-transport properties, and one on semiconductor optoelectronics (materials issues and device applications). There will also be a course in the morning entitled "The Internet Comes of Age," focusing on creating documents in hypertext markup language (html), running a web server, and interaction through forms and position sensing images, among other things. The afternoon section includes courses on the world of virtual instruments, nanofabrication, and physical techniques in biological science, as well as a course on high Tc superconductor electronics.

As part of their annual meeting, the Division of High Polymer Physics is holding a two-day short course, entitled "An Introduction to Polymeric Materials and their Applications." This short course will be held on Saturday and Sunday, 16-17 March, at the Adam's Mark, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.. The cost is $250 for members and nonmembers, and $125 for students.

The deadline for the receipt of contributed abstracts for the 1996 March Meeting is 5:00 p.m. EST on 1 December 1995. Last year, APS instituted a system for the electronic submission of abstracts and program publication.