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59-455: A 2013 review in Nature described the book as having "simplicity, beauty, unity ... presented with enthusiasm and insight". The textbook comprises three volumes. The first volume focuses on mechanics , radiation , and heat , including relativistic effects . The second volume covers mainly electromagnetism and matter . The third volume covers quantum mechanics ; for example, it shows how

118-556: A Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research initially rejected by Nature and published only after Lauterbur appealed against the rejection, Nature acknowledged more of its own missteps in rejecting papers in an editorial titled, "Coping with Peer Rejection": [T]here are unarguable faux pas in our history. These include the rejection of Cherenkov radiation , Hideki Yukawa 's meson , work on photosynthesis by Johann Deisenhofer , Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel , and

177-550: A natural history magazine and progressed to include more physical observational science and technical subjects and less natural history. The journal's name changed from its original title to Intellectual Observer: A Review of Natural History, Microscopic Research, and Recreative Science and then to the Student and Intellectual Observer of Science, Literature, and Art . While Recreative Science had attempted to include more physical sciences such as astronomy and archaeology ,

236-617: A consequence, the majority of submitted papers are rejected without review. According to Nature ' s original mission statement : It is intended, FIRST, to place before the general public the grand results of Scientific Work and Scientific Discovery; and to urge the claims of Science to a more general recognition in Education and in Daily Life; and, SECONDLY, to aid Scientific men themselves, by giving early information of all advances made in any branch of Natural knowledge throughout

295-461: A good grasp of physics by studying more traditional texts, and the books are sometimes seen as more helpful for teachers than for students. While the two-year course (1961–1963) was still underway, rumors of it spread throughout the physics research and teaching community. In a special preface to the 1989 edition, David Goodstein and Gerry Neugebauer claimed that as time went on, the attendance of registered undergraduate students dropped sharply but

354-465: A line by William Wordsworth : "To the solid ground of nature trusts the Mind that builds for aye". First owned and published by Alexander Macmillan , Nature was similar to its predecessors in its attempt to "provide cultivated readers with an accessible forum for reading about advances in scientific knowledge." Janet Browne has proposed that "far more than any other science journal of the period, Nature

413-666: A measure of how many citations a journal generates in other works, was 42.778 in 2019 (as measured by Thomson ISI ). However, as with many journals, most papers receive far fewer citations than the impact factor would indicate. Nature 's journal impact factor carries a long tail. Studies of methodological quality and reliability have found that some high-prestige journals including Nature "publish significantly substandard structures", and overall "reliability of published research works in several fields may be decreasing with increasing journal rank". As with most other professional scientific journals, papers undergo an initial screening by

472-521: A number of errors, some of which rendered problems insoluble. Various errata were issued, which are now available online. Addison-Wesley also released in CD format all the audio tapes of the lectures, over 103 hours with Richard Feynman, after remastering the sound and clearing the recordings. For the CD release, the order of the lectures was rearranged from that of the original texts. The publisher has released

531-473: A number of troubling inconsistencies in several fundamental theories. In particular, it was his work in quantum electrodynamics for which he was awarded the 1965 Nobel Prize in physics . At the same time that Feynman was at the pinnacle of his fame, the faculty of the California Institute of Technology was concerned about the quality of the introductory courses for undergraduate students. It

590-547: A public forum for scientific innovations. The mid-20th century facilitated an editorial expansion for the journal; Nature redoubled its efforts in explanatory and scientific journalism . The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the creation of a network of editorial offices outside of Britain and the establishment of ten new supplementary, speciality publications (e.g. Nature Materials ). Since the late 2000s, dedicated editorial and current affairs columns are created weekly, and electoral endorsements are featured. The primary source of

649-640: A table showing the correspondence between the books and the CDs . In March 1964, Feynman appeared once again before the freshman physics class as a lecturer, but the notes for this particular guest lecture were lost for a number of years. They were finally located, restored, and made available as Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun . In 2005, Michael A. Gottlieb and Ralph Leighton co-authored Feynman's Tips on Physics , which includes four of Feynman's freshman lectures which had not been included in

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708-419: A theory which, during the latter half of the 19th century, received a great deal of criticism among more conservative groups of scientists. Perhaps it was in part its scientific liberality that made Nature a longer-lasting success than its predecessors. John Maddox , editor of Nature from 1966 to 1973 and from 1980 to 1995, suggested at a celebratory dinner for the journal's centennial edition that perhaps it

767-514: Is a British weekly scientific journal founded and based in London , England. As a multidisciplinary publication, Nature features peer-reviewed research from a variety of academic disciplines, mainly in science and technology. It has core editorial offices across the United States, continental Europe, and Asia under the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature . Nature

826-584: The Nature Clinical Practice series of journals, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology , Nature Chemistry , and the Nature Reviews series of journals. Since 2005, each issue of Nature has been accompanied by a Nature Podcast featuring highlights from the issue and interviews with the articles' authors and the journalists covering the research. It is presented by Kerri Smith and features interviews with scientists on

885-574: The Intellectual Observer broadened itself further to include literature and art as well. Similar to Recreative Science was the scientific journal Popular Science Review , created in 1862, which covered different fields of science by creating subsections titled "Scientific Summary" or "Quarterly Retrospect", with book reviews and commentary on the latest scientific works and publications. Two other journals produced in England prior to

944-463: The Prince of Asturias Award for Communications and Humanity. Nature mostly publishes research articles. Spotlight articles are not research papers but mostly news or magazine style papers and hence do not count towards impact factor nor receive similar recognition as research articles. Some spotlight articles are also paid by partners or sponsors. The huge progress in science and mathematics during

1003-423: The Student and Intellectual Observer in 1871. The Quarterly Journal , after undergoing a number of editorial changes, ceased publication in 1885. The Reader terminated in 1867, and finally, Scientific Opinion lasted a mere 2 years, until June 1870. Not long after the conclusion of The Reader , a former editor, Norman Lockyer , decided to create a new scientific journal titled Nature , taking its name from

1062-561: The Unite the Right rally to oppose the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee , setting off violence in the streets and killing a young woman. When Nature posted a link to the editorial on Twitter , the thread quickly exploded with criticisms. In response, several scientists called for a boycott. On 18 September 2017, the editorial was updated and edited by Philip Campbell, the editor of the journal. When Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield won

1121-421: The double-slit experiment demonstrates the essential features of quantum mechanics. The book also includes chapters on the relationship between mathematics and physics , and the relationship of physics to other sciences. In 2013, Caltech in cooperation with The Feynman Lectures Website made the book freely available, on the web site. By 1960, Richard Feynman ’s research and discoveries in physics had resolved

1180-496: The structure of DNA , Nature did not send the paper out for peer review. John Maddox , Nature ' s editor, stated: "the Watson and Crick paper was not peer-reviewed by Nature ... the paper could not have been refereed: its correctness is self-evident. No referee working in the field ... could have kept his mouth shut once he saw the structure". An earlier error occurred when Enrico Fermi submitted his breakthrough paper on

1239-628: The 19th century was recorded in journals written mostly in German or French , as well as in English . Britain underwent enormous technological and industrial changes and advances particularly in the latter half of the 19th century. The most respected scientific journals of this time were the refereed journals of the Royal Society , which had published many of the great works from Isaac Newton and Michael Faraday to Charles Darwin . In addition,

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1298-530: The Creative Commons attribution-non-commercial-share alike unported licence for those articles in Nature journals that are publishing the primary sequence of an organism's genome for the first time. In 2008, a collection of articles from Nature was edited by John S. Partington under the title H. G. Wells in Nature, 1893–1946: A Reception Reader and published by Peter Lang . Nature also publishes

1357-898: The activities of the International Scientific Unions." During the years 1945 to 1973, editorship of Nature changed three times, first in 1945 to A. J. V. Gale and L. J. F. Brimble (who in 1958 became the sole editor), then to John Maddox in 1965, and finally to David Davies in 1973. In 1980, Maddox returned as editor and retained his position until 1995. Philip Campbell became Editor-in-chief of all Nature publications until 2018. Magdalena Skipper has since become Editor-in-chief. In 1970, Nature first opened its Washington office; other branches opened in New York in 1985, Tokyo and Munich in 1987, Paris in 1989, San Francisco in 2001, Boston in 2004, and Hong Kong in 2005. In 1971, under John Maddox 's editorship,

1416-474: The book Six Not So Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry and Space-Time . “ Six Easy Pieces grew out of the need to bring to as wide an audience as possible, a substantial yet nontechnical physics primer based on the science of Richard Feynman... General readers are fortunate that Feynman chose to present certain key topics in largely qualitative terms without formal mathematics…” Chapters: Chapters: Chapters: Nature (journal) Nature

1475-650: The case that removing such statues, and erasing names, runs the risk of "whitewashing history", and stated "Instead of removing painful reminders, perhaps these should be supplemented". The article caused a large outcry and was quickly modified by Nature. The article was largely seen as offensive, inappropriate, and by many, racist. Nature acknowledged that the article as originally written was "offensive and poorly worded" and published selected letters of response. The editorial came just weeks after hundreds of white supremacists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia , in

1534-516: The content. While it does, to an extent, provide free online access to articles, it is not a true open access scheme due to its restrictions on re-use and distribution. On 15 January 2015, details of a proposed merger with Springer Science+Business Media were announced. In May 2015 it came under the umbrella of Springer Nature , by the merger of Springer Science+Business Media and Holtzbrinck Publishing Group 's Nature Publishing Group , Palgrave Macmillan , and Macmillan Education . Since 2011,

1593-672: The development of Nature were the Quarterly Journal of Science and Scientific Opinion , established in 1864 and 1868, respectively. The journal most closely related to Nature in its editorship and format was The Reader , created in 1863; the publication mixed science with literature and art in an attempt to reach an audience outside of the scientific community, similar to Popular Science Review . These similar journals all ultimately failed. The Popular Science Review survived longest, lasting 20 years and ending its publication in 1881; Recreative Science ceased publication as

1652-411: The editor, followed by peer review (in which other scientists, chosen by the editor for expertise with the subject matter but who have no connection to the research under review, will read and critique articles), before publication. In the case of Nature , they are only sent for review if it is decided that they deal with a topical subject and are sufficiently ground-breaking in that particular field. As

1711-415: The fact that this would be a historic event, Caltech recorded each lecture and took photographs of each drawing made on the blackboard by Feynman. Based on the lectures and the tape recordings, a team of physicists and graduate students put together a manuscript that would become The Feynman Lectures on Physics . Although Feynman's most valuable technical contribution to the field of physics may have been in

1770-490: The field of quantum electrodynamics, the Feynman Lectures were destined to become his most widely-read work. The Feynman Lectures are considered to be one of the most sophisticated and comprehensive college-level introductions to physics. Feynman himself stated in his original preface that he was “pessimistic” with regard to his success in reaching all of his students. The Feynman lectures were written “to maintain

1829-464: The founder of Nature , was a professor at Imperial College . He was succeeded as editor in 1919 by Sir Richard Gregory . Gregory helped to establish Nature in the international scientific community. His obituary by the Royal Society stated: "Gregory was always very interested in the international contacts of science, and in the columns of Nature he always gave generous space to accounts of

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1888-550: The fresh and dynamic perspective of Richard Feynman”, and that his "gift was that he was an extraordinary teacher of teachers". Addison-Wesley published a collection of exercises and problems to accompany The Feynman Lectures on Physics . The problem sets were first used in the 1962–1963 academic year, and were organized by Robert B. Leighton . Some of the problems are sophisticated and difficult enough to require an understanding of advanced topics, such as Kolmogorov's zero–one law . The original set of books and supplements contained

1947-456: The initial rejection (but eventual acceptance) of Stephen Hawking 's black-hole radiation . In June 1988, after nearly a year of guided scrutiny from its editors, Nature published a controversial and seemingly anomalous paper detailing Jacques Benveniste and his team's work studying water memory . The paper concluded that less than a single molecule of antibody diluted in water could trigger an immune response in human basophils , defying

2006-402: The interest of very enthusiastic and rather smart students coming out of high schools and into Caltech”. Feynman was targeting the lectures to students who, “at the end of two years of our previous course, [were] very discouraged because there were really very few grand, new, modern ideas presented to them”. As a result, some physics students find the lectures more valuable after they have obtained

2065-474: The journal as either letters or news articles. The papers that have been published in this journal are internationally acclaimed for maintaining high research standards. Conversely, due to the journal's exposure, it has at various times been a subject of controversy for its handling of academic dishonesty, the scientific method , and news coverage. Fewer than 8% of submitted papers are accepted for publication. In 2007, Nature (together with Science ) received

2124-672: The journal has published Nature's 10 "people who mattered" during the year, as part of their annual review. According to Science , another academic journal, being published in Nature has been known to carry a certain level of prestige in academia. In particular, empirical papers are often highly cited, which can lead to promotions, grant funding, and attention from the mainstream media. Because of these positive feedback effects, competition among scientists to publish in high-level journals like Nature and its closest competitor, Science , can be very fierce. Nature ' s impact factor ,

2183-696: The journal remains, as established at its founding, research scientists; editing standards are primarily concerned with technical readability. Each issue also features articles that are of general interest to the scientific community, namely business, funding, scientific ethics, and research breakthroughs. There are also sections on books, arts, and short science fiction stories. The main research published in Nature consists mostly of papers (articles or letters) in lightly edited form. They are highly technical and dense, but, due to imposed text limits, they are typically summaries of larger work. Innovations or breakthroughs in any scientific or technological field are featured in

2242-423: The journal split into Nature Physical Sciences (published on Mondays), Nature New Biology (published on Wednesdays), and Nature (published on Fridays). In 1974, Maddox was no longer editor, and the journals were merged into Nature . Starting in the 1980s, the journal underwent a great deal of expansion, launching over ten new journals. These new journals comprise Nature Research, which was created in 1999 under

2301-595: The latest research, as well as news reports from Nature 's editors and journalists. The Nature Podcast was founded – and the first 100 episodes were produced and presented – by clinician and virologist Chris Smith of Cambridge and The Naked Scientists . Nature Portfolio actively supports the self-archiving process and in 2002 was one of the first publishers to allow authors to post their contributions on their personal websites, by requesting an exclusive licence to publish, rather than requiring authors to transfer copyright. In December 2007, Nature Publishing Group introduced

2360-434: The lecture text. To provide a device-independent reading experience, the website takes advantage of modern web technologies like HTML5 , SVG , and MathJax to present text, figures, and equations in any sizes while maintaining the display quality. Six readily-accessible chapters were later compiled into a book entitled Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher . Six more chapters are in

2419-481: The main text (three on problem solving , one on inertial guidance ), a memoir by Matthew Sands about the origins of the Feynman Lectures on Physics , and exercises (with answers) that were assigned to students by Robert B. Leighton and Rochus Vogt in recitation sections of the Feynman Lectures course at Caltech. Also released in 2005, was a "Definitive Edition" of the lectures which included corrections to

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2478-411: The name Nature Publishing Group and includes Nature , Nature Research Journals , Stockton Press Specialist Journals and Macmillan Reference (renamed NPG Reference). In 1996, Nature created its own website and in 1999 Nature Publishing Group began its series of Nature Reviews . Some articles and papers are available for free on the Nature website, while others require the purchase of premium access to

2537-563: The number of popular science periodicals doubled from the 1850s to the 1860s. According to the editors of these popular science magazines, the publications were designed to serve as "organs of science", in essence, a means of connecting the public to the scientific world. Nature , first created in 1869, was not the first magazine of its kind in Britain. One journal to precede Nature was Recreative Science: A Record and Remembrancer of Intellectual Observation , which, created in 1859, began as

2596-500: The original text. An account of the history of these famous volumes is given by Sands in his memoir article “Capturing the Wisdom of Feynman", and another article "Memories of Feynman" by the physicist T. A. Welton. In a September 13, 2013 email to members of the Feynman Lectures online forum, Gottlieb announced the launch of a new website by Caltech and The Feynman Lectures Website which offers "[A] free high-quality online edition" of

2655-548: The physical law of mass action . The paper excited substantial media attention in Paris, chiefly because their research sought funding from homeopathic medicine companies. Public inquiry prompted Nature to mandate an extensive and stringent experimental replication in Benveniste's lab, through which his team's results were refuted. Before publishing one of its most famous discoveries, Watson and Crick 's 1953 paper on

2714-489: The placement and maintenance of statues honouring scientists with known unethical, abusive and torturous histories. Specifically, the editorial called on examples of J. Marion Sims , the 'Father of gynecology' who experimented on African American female slaves who were unable to give informed consent, and Thomas Parran Jr. who oversaw the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment . The editorial as written made

2773-618: The public throughout the world, in a fashion that conveys their significance for knowledge, culture and daily life. Many of the most significant scientific breakthroughs in modern history have been first published in Nature . The following is a selection of scientific breakthroughs published in Nature , all of which had far-reaching consequences, and the citation for the article in which they were published. In 2017, Nature published an editorial entitled "Removing Statues of Historical figures risks whitewashing history: Science must acknowledge mistakes as it marks its past". The article commented on

2832-494: The site. As of 2012 , Nature claimed an online readership of about 3 million unique readers per month. On 30 October 2008, Nature endorsed an American presidential candidate for the first time when it supported Barack Obama during his campaign in America's 2008 presidential election . In October 2012, an Arabic edition of the magazine was launched in partnership with King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology . As of

2891-533: The time it was released, it had about 10,000 subscribers. On 2 December 2014, Nature announced that it would allow its subscribers and a group of selected media outlets to share links allowing free, "read-only" access to content from its journals. These articles are presented using the digital rights management system ReadCube (which is funded by the Macmillan subsidiary Digital Science), and does not allow readers to download, copy, print, or otherwise distribute

2950-498: The weak interaction theory of beta decay . Nature rejected the paper because it was considered too remote from reality. Fermi's paper was published by Zeitschrift für Physik in 1934. The journal apologised for its initial coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in which it linked China and Wuhan with the outbreak, which may have led to racist attacks. From 2000 to 2001, a series of five fraudulent papers by Jan Hendrik Schön

3009-430: The world, and by affording them an opportunity of discussing the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time. This was later revised to: First, to serve scientists through prompt publication of significant advances in any branch of science, and to provide a forum for the reporting and discussion of news and issues concerning science. Second, to ensure that the results of science are rapidly disseminated to

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3068-475: Was retracted due to concerns raised regarding some of the panels shown in a figure, making it the most-cited retracted paper ever. In 1999, Nature began publishing science fiction short stories. The brief " vignettes " are printed in a series called "Futures". The stories appeared in 1999 and 2000, again in 2005 and 2006, and have appeared weekly since July 2007. Sister publication Nature Physics also printed stories in 2007 and 2008. In 2005, Nature

3127-1027: Was awarded the European Science Fiction Society 's Best Publisher award for the "Futures" series. One hundred of the Nature stories between 1999 and 2006 were published as the collection Futures from Nature in 2008. Another collection, Futures from Nature 2 , was published in 2014. Nature is edited and published in the United Kingdom by a division of the international scientific publishing company Springer Nature that publishes academic journals, magazines , online databases, and services in science and medicine. Nature has offices in London, New York City, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston , Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, Munich , and Basingstoke . Nature Portfolio also publishes other specialized journals including Nature Neuroscience , Nature Biotechnology , Nature Methods ,

3186-610: Was conceived, born, and raised to serve polemic purpose." Many of the early editions of Nature consisted of articles written by members of a group that called itself the X Club , a group of scientists known for having liberal, progressive, and somewhat controversial scientific beliefs for their time. Initiated by Thomas Henry Huxley , the group consisted of such important scientists as Joseph Dalton Hooker , Herbert Spencer , and John Tyndall , along with another five scientists and mathematicians; these scientists were all avid supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution as common descent ,

3245-411: Was matched by a compensating increase in the number of faculty and graduate students. Co-author Matthew Sands , in his memoir accompanying the 2005 edition, contested this claim. Goodstein and Neugebauer also stated that, “it was [Feynman’s] peers — scientists, physicists, and professors — who would be the main beneficiaries of his magnificent achievement, which was nothing less than to see physics through

3304-511: Was one of the world's most cited scientific journals by the Science Edition of the 2022 Journal Citation Reports (with an ascribed impact factor of 50.5), making it one of the world's most-read and most prestigious academic journals . As of 2012 , it claimed an online readership of about three million unique readers per month. Founded in autumn 1869, Nature was first circulated by Norman Lockyer and Alexander MacMillan as

3363-438: Was published in Nature . The papers, about semiconductors , were revealed to contain falsified data and other scientific fraud. In 2003, Nature retracted the papers. The Schön scandal was not limited to Nature ; other prominent journals, such as Science and Physical Review , also retracted papers by Schön. In 2024, a paper titled " Pluripotency of mesenchymal stem cells derived from adult marrow," published in 2002,

3422-480: Was the journalistic qualities of Nature that drew readers in; "journalism" Maddox states, "is a way of creating a sense of community among people who would otherwise be isolated from each other. This is what Lockyer's journal did from the start." In addition, Maddox mentions that the financial backing of the journal in its first years by the Macmillan family also allowed the journal to flourish and develop more freely than scientific journals before it. Norman Lockyer ,

3481-420: Was thought the courses were burdened by an old-fashioned syllabus and the exciting discoveries of recent years, many of which had occurred at Caltech, were not being taught to the students. Thus, it was decided to reconfigure the first physics course offered to students at Caltech, with the goal being to generate more excitement in the students. Feynman readily agreed to give the course, though only once. Aware of

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