Regarding “This Month in Physics History” in the March APS News: Great story, but don't be ridiculous. Hanging a counterfeiter has nothing whatsoever to do with the history of physics even if the noose was provided by Isaac Newton.
Michael Nauenberg
Santa Cruz, CA
The March, 2011 Bygone Years item stimulated a memory I have often wanted confirmed. Back in about 1949 I recall that some journal of the APS once a year ran a list of the most distinguished twenty (?) physicists, in numerical order. I was a graduate student at the time at Harvard and remember a young faculty member complaining that after the first ten names he would claim equal distinction with anyone on the list.
It is hard now to imagine that there ever was such a list but the memory remains. Can you confirm its one-time existence, give us the year of its demise, and republish the last list, if it ever existed.
Henry R. Lewis
Cambridge, MA
Ed. Note: We have been unable to confirm the existence of the list to which the writer alludes. Perhaps one of our readers can shed some light on what the memory refers to.
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