American Institute of Physics Receives $3 Million Gift from Avenir Foundation

COLLEGE PARK, MARYLAND, 9 May 2008 — The Avenir Foundation, which has been interested in the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for many years, has made a gift of three million dollars ($3,000,000) to the AIP to endow the Spencer R. Weart Directorship of the Center for History of Physics at AIP. This is the largest gift ever given to AIP and establishes the first endowed position at the Institute.

“We are deeply gratified by this very generous gift from the Avenir Foundation,” says AIP Executive Director and CEO H. Frederick Dylla, Ph.D. “The Center for History of Physics is a unique resource for scholars and institutions worldwide. The authors of most of the hundreds of books on the development of modern physics and allied sciences published in recent decades have relied on the resources of the History Center and the Archives in their research. This endowment will ensure the Center’s stature and growth into the foreseeable future.”

The Avenir Foundation (“avenir” means “future” in French) has a special concern for the sciences. The principles of physics are basic to human existence, and it is of vital importance that a historical record of the application of these principles be preserved. The Foundation’s board is helping to make this possible by supporting the work so ably conducted at the American Institute of Physics by Spencer R. Weart.

The position is named in honor of Spencer R. Weart, Ph.D., the Center’s current director who is retiring after 35 years. The new director will oversee the History Center and its programs promoting the understanding and dissemination of the history of modern physical science and its role in society.

“The way we live,” says Weart, “our entire society today would be utterly different without the physics discoveries of the past couple of centuries—and much worse off. The physics community has long recognized a need to figure out how all this happened and explain it to the public. The Center has given exceptional support to the work of historians and archivists. Friends of our enterprise, like the Avenir Foundation, have also been wonderfully far-sighted. They have given the AIP’s History Center a matchless capacity to advance our knowledge of one of the most crucial forces in modern history.”