My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950

Details My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950 My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950

May 1999

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aas...194.4305o&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 194th AAS Meeting, #43.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.883

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

I attended my first AAS meeting at the end of my first year as a graduate student at Yerkes Observatory, in the summer of 1950. Yerkes was the home base of the astronomy faculty, staff, and graduate students of the University of Chicago, and a large contingent went to this meeting at nearby Indiana University, and then on to the symposium immediately following it at the University of Michigan. In this paper I will describe these meetings so as to bring out the differences between this typical AAS meeting nearly half a century ago, and one today, as well as their similarities. Briefly, the main differences resulted from the fact that astronomy was much smaller then, and less well funded. Membership in the AAS, attendance at its 1950 meeting, and the number of papers presented were all smaller by factors of roughly ten than now. Most astronomers paid their own expenses to meetings, or were only reimbursed for part of them by their universities. Hence most meetings were held on university campuses. There were no registration fees, and the receptions, picnics, and outings were provided by the ``host" institution, which treated the visiting astronomers as its guests. The AAS had no paid staff. There were no parallel sessions nor poster papers. Members submitted only titles for their papers, most of them on stars; fewer on planets, asteroids and meteors; and fewer still on interstellar matter, gaseous nebulae, galaxies, or cosmology. Research papers were the most important part of the meeting, but ``teachers' sessions," the equivalent of the education sessions of today, were part of the program too. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones were an important, unscheduled part of the meeting. This paper will provide a narrative of these meetings, illustrated by photographs of groups, scenes, and astronomers.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950 does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and My First AAS Meeting: Bloomington and ANN Arbor, June 1950 will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1120369