Dr. Surendra Gadekar

Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya

Publisher of Anumukti

South Asia's Only Anti-Nuclear Magazine

Vedchhi, India

30 June 2000

Marc Brodsky (via e-mail)

CEO and Executive Director

American Institute of Physics

One Physics Ellipse

College Park, Maryland 20740

Dear Mr. Brodsky,

Physics Today has been for many people like me a source of good reading. Many are the pleasant hours that I spent in the library at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and at the library at Iowa State University (where I did my postdoc) reading the journal. But a journal can maintain high journalistic standards if and only if the people working on it are joyful and not afraid of adverse consequences in case their free-time activity displeases their bosses. Your action terminating the services of Jeff Schmidt for "not being fully engaged" with the journal smacks of vindictiveness. If Mr. Schmidt had been incompetent or not giving his best to the journal, surely you could have found that out sometime sooner than after 19 years. To a disengaged observer like me it seems that you have not been fully engaged in the journal or else it would not have taken you so long.

The very fact that you found Mr. Schmidt's performance perfectly satisfactory for so many years shows that your action is prompted more to set an example to others in the organization. It is an action that is bound to result in the deterioration of the quality of writing at Physics Today. This letter is an appeal to you to reconsider your hasty step and restore Mr. Jeff Schmidt to his job. That action would not undo all the damage caused, but at least it would be a step in the right direction.

Sincerely,

Dr. Surendra Gadekar