In late January I received my copy of the winter Newsletter of History of Science Society and was very pleased to notice an an- nouncement of the Abraham Pais Award among its listings of grants, fellowships and prizes. After two years of hard work by our dedi- cated Award Committee, word is finally going out to history and physics colleagues about this award "for outstanding scholarly
... [Show full abstract] achievements in the history of physics." And it is fittingly named in honor of Bram Pais, a great physicist and a noted historian of phys- ics who truly embodies the international spirit of both fields; his spirit will endure in the annual granting of this Award. We now await with great anticipation the submission of nominations for this Award and the naming of its inaugural winner. It gives me great satisfaction to have served on the Forum's Award Committee while the Pais Award was becoming a reality. I think we all looked forward to the regular conference calls, usually an hour but sometimes longer, during which we discussed and de- bated the next steps in establishing the Award, building its endow- ment, and finalizing the details of how winners are to be determined. This was committee work at its finest, with everyone making major contributions. It would take too many words to enumerate their contributions here, but let me repeat once more their names: Ben Bederson, our indefatigable Chair; Steven Brush; Gloria Lubkin; Harry Lustig; myself; Roger Stuewer; and Spencer Weart represent- ing the American Institute of Physics, which cosponsors the Pais Award with the American Physical Society. We have also received excellent support throughout from the APS development team of Darlene Logan and Sarah Davis. Fundraising efforts are continuing under the leadership of Harry Lustig, who has assumed the Chair of the Award Committee from Ben, who now has his hands full editing the Forum's Newsletter. Our goal is eventually to increase the endowment to 130,000, not including a matching Lounsbery grant of $13,000. We urge you to consider adding to this growing endow- ment in your donation plans. During the past year, the Forum has inaugurated one more ef- fort at recognizing important contributions to the history of physics by establishing the Historic Physics Sites Committee at the instiga- tion of Alan Chodos and Judy Franz. As part of the APS activities that will occur during the World Year of Physics 2005, they hope to begin identifying and publicizing U.S. locations and institutions at which major advances occurred in the history of physics. The HPS Committee has been established to advise the APS staff regarding the standards, policies and procedures to be followed in determin-
