To Advance and Diffuse the Knowledge of Physics

100 Years of the American Physical Society

The American Center for Physics, headquarters of the APS, located in College Park, Maryland.

Curator: Sara Schechner Genuth, Gnomon Research
Exhibit Director: Barrett Ripin
APS History: Harry Lustig
Journals History: R. Mark Wilson
Researchers: George Trigg, Ruth Kastner, Steven Norton, Amy Halsted
Exhibit Design: Puches Design Inc.
Fabrication: Malone Displays

APS Today
As the world's largest physics association, the American Physical Society continues to serve the international physics community with journals, meetings, and public programs of the first rank.

In 1997, APS members ratified a new, augmented mission statement: In the firm belief that an understanding of the nature of the physical universe will be a benefit to all humanity, the objective of the Society shall be the advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics.

There is no doubt that the Society will keep on its august course in years to come.

At right: The American Center for Physics, headquarters of the APS, located in College Park, Maryland.

Speaking as much to members today as to our founders 100 years ago, Henry Rowland proclaimed:

The study of nature's secrets is the ordained method by which the greatest good and happiness shall finally come to the human raceLet us go forward, then, with confidence in the dignity of our pursuit. Let us hold our heads high with a pure conscience while we seek the truth, and may the American Physical Society do its share now and in generations yet to come in trying to unravel the great problem of the constitution and laws of the Universe.

Henry Rowland, The Highest Aim of the Physicist
APS presidential address, 1899.