From its founding in 1893, the Physical Review had two classes of communications. The main class was called articles or papers; the second, originally, Minor Contributions. The latter comprised brief scientific notes, meeting reports, and book reviews. In 1925, the scientific notes were given the designation Rapid Communications; in 1929, they became Letters to the Editor, but they still were relatively minor contributions. At least until about 1950, they were not reviewed except by the Editor. At that time, when Sam Goudsmit became Editor of PR, he was at Brookhaven National Laboratory; he began to take advantage of the expertise of his associates there by asking them to review Letters. Gradually, this practice morphed into more formal reviewing by outside referees. A natural but unanticipated result was a growth in the time from the receipt of a Letter until its appearance in print, a time lag that was accentuated by the time it took to set the journal in hot type.
George L. Trigg
Meanwhile, as pointed out by Robert Adair [1] , authors came to realize that priority could be “established as firmly by a 600-word letter as by a 6000-word paper.” Thus the letters no longer could be automatically considered as “minor” contributions. It was the combination of these effects that led Goudsmit to propose that the Letters be published separately, using typewriter composition and the technique of photo-offset lithography in the printing process. The resulting journal was to be Physical Review Letters.
In the academic year 1957–1958, I was taking a sabbatical from my faculty position at Oregon State College (now University), spending my time at Harvard and MIT. As my wife and I drove from Cambridge to New York late in January to attend what in those days was an annual meeting of The American Physical Society, we commented on how remarkable it was to be going to the meeting with no thought of visiting the employment hall that was a regular feature of it. Another regular feature was a joint session with the American Association of Physics Teachers, held in the Manhattan Center. It was of such a nature that my wife attended it with me. After the session itself was over, we were part of the crowd milling around in the foyer when we heard Sam Goudsmit calling my name. (I had become acquainted with him a few years before, when I had spent a summer at Brookhaven as a guest physicist.) He said, “George! I’ve been wondering where you were. I have a job for you.” We found a place where we could talk easily, and he described his idea for Physical Review Letters and invited me to become Assistant Editor of the new journal. My wife and I took some time to consider the invitation. We were very happy in Oregon—I still regard it as one of the two most pleasant places I have lived—but eventually the fact that I felt I could do a better job in that position than I was doing at Oregon State won out, and I notified the College that I did not intend to come back. We moved to Long Island as soon as we could.
I cannot recall just when the other personnel of the journal arrived. My impression is that Malcolm J. Fleming, who was to be the production manager, and possibly at least one of the two people who would be the typists, were already present. Our first project was to arrange to be able to insert Greek and mathematical symbols into the text and equations. We were to use IBM electric typewriters, which at that time were still using metal arms carrying typebars rather than the balls that later carried the type characters. It was possible to purchase keys with the needed characters on them, and the typewriters were such that certain keys could be readily removed and replaced with others. But while this was acceptable in cases where a small number of extra characters would each be used often, it was not very practical in the case of a large number of characters that were to be used only a few times each. The solution to the problem was devised by Simon Pasternack, then Editor of the Physical Review, who noted that if one key on a typewriter is held against the platen and struck from behind by another key, it is the typebar that is struck that makes the impression. Typebars with the necessary characters could be purchased individually; all that was needed was to mount them on separate arms, which would then be hung from a suitably placed suspension [2] . Three BNL machinists were engaged to produce the arms, make the suspensions, and mount the typebars on the arms. Each typist was then provided with a rack in which the arms were kept. The typists became quite deft in hanging the bars in place. Special keys on the typewriters were fitted with blank typebars and used as hammer keys, rather than risk damaging the regular typebars.
I mentioned that Malcolm Fleming, known as “Mike,” was early engaged as the production manager. I am convinced that without Mike’s experience in publishing, and his acquaintance with people in the publishing world, PRL would have foundered early on. He connected us with a printer, Canterbury Press, in Rome, New York, who served us admirably until the whole production process was taken over by the American Institute of Physics. In addition, it was his knowledge that allowed a major development in the handling of circulation. By 1964, the individual semimonthly issues had become uncomfortably large, and the decision was made to shift to weekly publication. At about the same time, complaints had begun to arise over the time lag between the publication date and the date of arrival of the journal in the subscribers’ hands. Mike Fleming pointed out to us that there was a special postal status applicable to any news publication that was published weekly, and he was confident that PRL could indeed be classified as a news publication. The status would qualify the journal for what was known as “newspaper handling,” which meant that every link in the postal delivery system was required to move the journal out of its care within 24 hours. The process of getting the U.S. Post Office to confirm this status resulted in some amusement when correspondence from the Post Office Department mistook the sense of the word “Physical” in our title and classed PRL with such publications as boxing journals. But it worked out well.
The production crew grew apace, and eventually numbered about a dozen—mostly typists, but with one layout artist who converted the galley-style typewriter output into pages. Such a crew called for an office manager, and one of the early typists, Vera Scott, was chosen for the position. She did an excellent job; I have the feeling that she was a sort of mother hen to the younger typists. She remained with the journal until she retired.
Very early on, Mike Fleming introduced what soon took on the nature of a ritual. On the morning of the day when the printer’s representative was to pick up the camera-ready page boards, Mike, Vera Scott, and at least one or two of the other typists, the layout artist, and I gathered around the work table and carried out the “closing of the book”: turning the pages one by one and keeping an eye out for any flagrant errors. Fortunately, these were rare, but frequent enough to make it worth the trouble of checking for them.
I actually had a sort of double position. I had a definite role in the production process; for quite a while, I copyedited every Letter that was accepted. But I also had a major role in the process of deciding acceptance or rejection of contributed material. From the beginning, I helped choose reviewers. I also read their reports, and recommended whether each contribution should be accepted or rejected. For a while, Sam vetted my recommendations. Eventually, he looked only at those for which I gave a negative recommendation. Sometimes, especially when it was a matter of suggesting a different journal, he would make me aware of political considerations that I was not sensitive to. But mostly he went along with what I proposed.
I do not pretend to think that nobody other than I could have done the job. But I was highly complimented when, at a gathering celebrating the 25th anniversary of the journal, I was credited with having “set the style” of the journal.
