March 11, 2005

New Physics Journal Prepares to Take On the American Physical Society; Blackwell Publishing Allows Authors to Make Articles Free on the Web, for a Price

By RICHARD MONASTERSKY and LILA GUTERMAN

PHYSICAL COMBAT: Somebody will be crashing the party this month when 6,500 physicists convene at the annual March meeting of the American Physical Society in Los Angeles. Alison Wright, editor of the start-up journal Nature Physics, will be trolling for submissions, trying to nab hot papers for the publication's premier issue, which will roll out in October. While at the meeting, she will be competing with in-house editors from the physical society itself, which publishes some of the most