Peace Through Science

The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, is celebrating its 40th anniversary. It focuses on facilitating scientific collaboration between the developed and the developing world through a range of programs, including an annual college in optics. For some young optical scientists, involvement with the center has been a life-changing experience.

Optics-Inspired Student Entrepreneurship

A program aimed at helping university students acquire the skills needed to launch a technology startup has registered a number of successes. Several companies have been spun out of the program, which is offered at Brown University, in Providence, R.I.

Stephen Benton on Holography, Polaroid and MIT

An interview with Stephen Benton (1941-2003), the energetic physicist, mentor and conference organizer who played a pivotal role in the development of display holography, illustrates how a new discipline evolved from the work of scientists, engineers and artists.

Ecologically Friendly Optical Glasses

Concerns about the effects on the environment of lead and arsenic have fueled programs aimed at formulating new, ecologically friendly optical glasses. Some new formulas offer improvements over traditional ones in areas that include chemical durability.

Dord

For a period of about five years, Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd ed., listed the word “dord” between “Dorcopsis” and “doré.”

Transmitting secrets through single photons, like fluorescent light, only better?, measuring radiation in real time, Hubble Space Telescope image of L11B

JOSA, 1961–1983

OSA’s first journal, the Journal of the Optical Society of America (JOSA), had been launched in 1917. Under the stewardship of a series of competent editors, it enjoyed growing popularity among authors and readers, even in the face of competition from an increasing number of specialized journals. JOSA’s first four decades were chronicled in a column published in the September 2002 issue of OPN.

Book Reviews

From the President

OSA Today

OSA Today

OSA 2004 Election Preview

OSA Financial Report

Cholesteric Liquid Crystal Layer