Physical Review Letters

["Barbara Hicks" <hicks@aps.org>]

American Physical Society Editorial Office
1 Research Road, Ridge, NY 11961-9000  http://publish.aps.org/

"Milestone" series highlights significant papers from the 50 
years of Physical Review Letters

Contact: Amy Halsted
American Physical Society
halsted@aps.org, 
631-591-4232

Ridge, NY, April 10, 2008 - In connection with the 50th 
Anniversary Celebration of Physical Review Letters, a 
chronological series of "milestone" papers from each year of the 
journal are being selected, briefly described, and posted each 
week: http://prl.aps.org/50years/milestones. An RSS feed for 
Milestones is available, to raise awareness and facilitate site 
visits.

Milestone Letters have made long-lived contributions to physics, 
either by announcing significant discoveries, or by initiating 
new areas of research. Many of them report on work that was later 
recognized with a Nobel Prize for one or more of the authors. 
Milestones from 1958, the first year of PRL's existence, appeared 
in the week of January 2; the most recent posting is from 1970. 
Upcoming weeks will feature four successive years (1972-1975) 
with Letters resulting in one or more Nobel Prizes. The series 
will continue through the anniversary year, culminating with 
papers from 2000.

The Editor of this PRL retrospective is Editor-in-Chief Emeritus 
Martin Blume, assisted by PRL editor Yonko Millev. Selection of 
the "milestone" papers has not been an easy task, given the 
journal's mission to publish the most important developments in 
physics. An effort has been made to obtain a distribution of such 
articles in the various fields of physics. "It is inevitable that 
some very important work will not be featured," Blume observed. 
"This shows the breadth and high quality of the contents of 
Physical Review Letters."

About the APS: The American Physical Society is the world's 
largest professional body of physicists, representing over 45,000 
physicists in academia and industry in the US and 
internationally. It has offices in Ridge, NY and College Park, 
MD.  For more information: www.aps.org.

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