On 12/10/14, 6:31 AM, Alan Melia wrote:
Hi Dave, as a long time reader (since 1955) and subscriber I remember
the Amateur scientist pages ending in the 1980s. I think the contributer
retired. At around that time I think the many adherents formed the
Society of Amateur Scientists. Though I have not visited fot several
years the web site was www.sas.org and I believe had pdfs of old SciAm
Amateur Scientist articles.
Wikipedia probably has a page with the history
Started with Ingalls and telescope making kinds of things.
C.L. "Red" Stong ran the Amateur Scientist for many years and the
projects ranged from mundane "A detailed survey of pond life" to exotic:
"How an ambitious amateur splits atoms"
We tend to remember the exotic: potential drop linear accelerators
(which got Science First started in business, as it happens), HeNe, CO2,
and N2 lasers, zinc sulfur propellant amateur rockets, etc.
There were less exciting ones: an early one about operational amplifiers
using some of the first hybrid microcircuit amps.
Jearl Walker picked it up when Stong died, and the format changed a bit
to be more "accessible" and more about everyday phenomena. For instance,
the column on why honey makes the patterns it does as it drips down in a
stream. Less reporting on "ambitious amateur does X" and more "you can
do Y".
Then there was the Forrest Mims saga, although I don't recall seeing
many of Mims's columns, but he had written a lot of electronics
experimenting books for Radio Shack and so forth, so it was very hands
on practical. But Mims's anti-evolution stance caused a bit of heartburn.
Somewhere at the end they got hooked up with Shawn(sp?) Carlson of the
society for amateur scientists (http://www.sas.org/) who had a very
successful run in the C.L.Stong vein. around year 2000 or so. I'm sure
Carlson's efforts were helped by not needing an income for a few years
after getting a MacArthur fellowship. The SAS seemed like a tough way
to make a living.
Then the magazine changed editorial approach in general.
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