But, far above Cayuga's waters, three Cornell University physics professors had a plan to establish a journal called Physical Review. On May 3, 1893, Edward Nichols, Ernest Merritt, and Frederick Bedell received a $500 grant from the Cornell treasurer -- money appropriated by the Cornell Executive Committee. The journal had seed money.
The original metal printing plate of the journal's first issue, dated July/August 1893, is on display at the centennial convention of the American Physical Society (APS) in Atlanta this week.
The exhibit, curated by Sarah Shickner-Genuth of Physical Review, notes that when the journal was started , many people were confused by the term "physical" -- thinking the journal promoted good health. As a result, the Review received many communications from those in the health business. One such letter on display was from the Meyer Brothers Druggists, who had their own journal, hoping to exchange courtesy subscriptions.
For years, the journal was edited by Nichols from his office in Rockefeller Hall on the Cornell campus. By 1899, Nichols and other prominent physicists had started the APS, and just after the turn of the century, Physical Review was printing abstracts of society meetings at a cost to members of $3 each.
By 1912, the APS was considering publishing its own physics journal. Rather than compete, Nichols and the otherReview editors ceded the journal to the APS in 1913, which publishes it to this day.
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