Information about Scientific American

Scientific American
March 2005 cover of Scientific American
Abbreviated title	Sci Am
Discipline	Interdisciplinary
Language	English
Publication details
Publisher	Scientific American, Inc. (USA)
Publication history	1845 to present
Indexing
ISSN	0036-8733
Links
*Journal homepage

Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, published (first weekly and later monthly) since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. It brings articles about new and innovative research to the amateur and lay audience.

Scientific American (informally abbreviated to "SciAm") had a monthly circulation of roughly 555,000 US and 90,000 international as of December 2005.^[1] It is a well-respected publication despite not being a peer-reviewed scientific journal, such as Nature; rather, it is a forum where scientific theories and discoveries are explained to a wider audience. In the past scientists interested in fields outside their own areas of expertise made up the magazine's target audience. Now, however, the publication is aimed at educated general readers who are interested in scientific issues. The magazine American Scientist covers similar ground but at a level more suitable for the professional science audience, similar to the older style of Scientific American.

History

The magazine was founded by Rufus Porter as a single-page newsletter, and throughout its early years Scientific American put much emphasis on reports of what was going on at the US patent office. It reported on a broad range of inventions that includes perpetual motion machines, an 1849 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint which now finds place in nearly every automobile manufactured. Current issues feature a "this date in history" section, featuring an article originally published 50, 100, and 150 years ago — where often-humorous, un-scientific, or otherwise noteworthy gems of science history are featured.

Porter sold the newsletter in 1846 to Alfred Ely Beach and Orson Desaix Munn, and until 1948 it remained owned by Munn & Company. Under the second Orson D. Munn, grandson of the first, it had evolved into something of a "workbench" publication, similar to the 20th century incarnation of Popular Science. In the years after World War II, the magazine was dying. Three partners who were planning on starting a new popular science magazine, to be called The Sciences, instead purchased the assets of the old Scientific American and put its name on the designs they had created for their new magazine. Thus the partners -- publisher Gerard Piel, editor Dennis Flanagan, and general manager Donald H. Miller, Jr. -- created essentially a new magazine, the Scientific American magazine of the second half of the twentieth century. Miller retired in 1979, Flanagan and Piel in 1984, when Gerard Piel's son Jonathan became president and editor; circulation had grown fifteenfold since 1948. In 1986 it was sold to the Holtzbrinck group of Germany, who have owned it since. Donald Miller died in December, 1998,^[2] Gerard Piel in September 2004 and Dennis Flanagan in January 2005. John Rennie is the current editor-in-chief.

International Editions

Scientific American published its first foreign edition in 1890, the Spanish-language "La America Cientifica." Publication was suspended in 1905, and another 63 years would pass before another foreign-language edition appeared: In 1968, an Italian edition, Le Scienze, was launched, and a Japanese edition, Nikkei Science(), followed three years later. Kexue, a simplified Chinese edition launched in 1979, was the first Western magazine published in the People's Republic of China.

Today, Scientific American publishes 18 foreign-language editions around the globe: Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish.

From 1902 to 1911, Scientific American supervised the publication of the Encyclopedia Americana, which during some of that period was known as The Americana.

First issue

It originally styled itself "The Advocate of Industry and Enterprise" and "Journal of Mechanical and other Improvements". On the front page of the first issue was the engraving of "Improved Rail-Road Cars". The masthead had a commentary as follows:

Scientific American published every Thursday morning at No. 11 Spruce Street, New York, No. 16 State Street, Boston, and No. 2l Arcade Philadelphia, (The principal office being in New York) bt Rufus Porter. Each number will be furnished with from two to five original Engravings, many of them elegant, and illustrative of New Inventions, Scientific Principles, and Curious Works; and will contain, in high addition to the most interesting news of passing events, general notices of progress of Mechanical and other Scientific Improvements; American and Foreign. Improvements and Inventions; Catalogues of American Patents; Scientific Essays, illustrative of the principles of the sciences of Mechanics, Chemistry, and Architecture: useful information and instruction in various Arts and Trades; Curious Philosophical Experiments; Miscellaneous Intelligence, Music and Poetry. This paper is especially entitled to the patronage of Mechanics and Manufactures, being the only paper in America, devoted to the interest of those classes; but is particularly useful to farmers, as it will not only appraise them of improvements in agriculture implements, But instruct them in various mechanical trades, and guard them against impositions As a family newspaper, it will convey more useful intelligence to children and young people, than five times its cost in school instruction. Another important argument in favor of this paper, is that it will be worth two (dollars at the end of the year when the volume is complete, (Old volumes of the New York Mechanic, being now worth double the original cost, in cash.) Terms: The "Scientific American" will be furnished to subscribers at $2.00 per annum, - one dollar in advance, and the balance in six months. Five copies will be sent to one address six months for four dollars in advance. Any person procuring two or more subscribers, will be entitled to a commission of 25 cents each.

The commentary under the illustration gives the flavor of its style at the time:

There is, perhaps no mechanical subject, in which improvement has advanced so rapidly, within the last ten years, as that of railroad passenger cars. Let any person contrast the awkward and uncouth cars of '35 with the superbly splendid long cars now running on several of the eastern roads, and he will find it difficult to convey to a third party, a correct idea of the vast extent of improvement. Some of the most elegant cars of this class, and which are of a capacity to accommodate from sixty to eighty passengers, and run with a steadiness hardly equalled by a steamboat in still water, are manufactured by Davenport & Bridges, at their establishment in Cambridgeport, Mass. The manufacturers have recently introduced a variety of excellent improvements in the construction of trucks, springs, and connections, which are calculated to avoid atmospheric resistance, secure safety and convenience, and contribute ease and comfort to passengers, while flying at the rate of 30 or 40 miles per hour."

Also in the first issue is commentary on Signor Muzio Muzzi's proposed device for aerial navigation.

Editors

• Dennis Flanagan (1919 – 2005) was an editor of Scientific American starting in 1947. ^[3]

Special issues

• Communications, Computers, and Networks - September 1991

Scientific American 50 award

The Scientific American 50 award was started in 2002 to recognise contributions to science and technology during the magazine's previous year. The magazine's 50 awards cover many categories including agriculture, communications, defence, environment, and medical diagnostics. The complete list of each year's winners appear in the December issue of the magazine, as well as on the magazine's web site.

Website

In March 1996 Scientific American launched its own website at SciAm.com.

The site has grown into a resource that includes articles from current and past issues, online-only features, daily news, weird science, special reports, trivia, "Scidoku" and more.

At SciAm.com visitors can subscribe to the Scientific American magazine, Scientific American Mind Magazine,and Scientific American Digital which houses downloadable PDF issues of the magazines from 1992 to the present.

Columns

Notable features have included:

• Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column
• The Amateur Scientist column

Television

Scientific American also produces a TV program on the PBS channel called Scientific American Frontiers.

Criticism

In May of 1988 science writer Forrest Mims was a candidate to take over The Amateur Scientist column, which needed a new editor. He was asked to write some sample columns, which he did in 1990. Mims was not offered the position, due, he alleged, to his creationist views. Various newspapers, starting with the Houston Chronicle which broke the story and later The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post and the New York Times, published articles critical of the magazine for rejecting the author, not on science but on his personal religious views. The underlying theme of the criticism was that Scientific American toed the line of scientific orthodoxy. According to Mims, former managing editor Armand Schwab Jr. said "Scientific American is a science magazine; it's largely written by scientists. We're completely dependent on the good will of working scientists for those articles, so there's a question of whether or not this could conceivably threaten the credibility of the magazine. You have to understand that creationism is sort of a shibboleth for scientists."^[4]

In its January 2002 issue, Scientific American published a series of criticisms of the Bjorn Lomborg book "The Skeptical Environmentalist". Cato Institute fellow Patrick J. Michaels said the attacks came because the book "threatens billions of taxpayer dollars that go into the global change kitty every year."^[5] Journalist Ronald Bailey called the criticism "disturbing" and "dishonest", writing, "The subhead of the review section, 'Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist,' gives the show away: Religious and political views need to defend themselves against criticism, but science is supposed to be a process for determining the facts,"^[6] although criticisms of scientific papers are not uncommon in academic science.

The May 2007 issue featured a column by Michael Shermer calling for a United States pullout from the Iraq War.^[7] In response, Wall Street Journal online columnist James Taranto jokingly called Scientific American "a liberal political magazine".^[8]

In the 1990s the target audience changed, from other scientists in unrelated fields, to educated general readers interested in science issues. This change is lamented in an article The Demise of Scientific American by Professor Larry Moran ^[9].

See also

• Albert Graham Ingalls, former editor and author of an amateur astronomy column
• Amos Root
• General-audience description
• New Scientist
• Scientific American Mind

Notes

References

• Lewenstein, Bruce V. 1989. Magazine Publishing and Popular Science After World War II. American Journalism 6 (4):218-234.

External links

• Online edition of Scientific American with partially free access to the current issue.
• Online archive (not free) of the issues from 1993 to the present.
• Information about the archive
• Online archive of Scientific American between 1846 and 1869.