THE ARCHIVES

INTRODUCTION

     The original Akron Physics Club, founded in 1966, was a somewhat formal (some might say scholarly) organization that met in a lecture-hall setting at the University of Akron.  A few members — usually 8 or 10 of us — had dinner with the speaker at Sanginiti’s Restaurant on East Market before repairing to Ayre Hall for the program.  In its first life, the club lasted about 15 years.  But personnel mobility and other factors eventually led to its demise.

     After a decade of hiatus, the club was resuscitated by a group of friends, spearheaded by then-Chair of the University’s Department of Physics, Charlie Wilson.  Meeting at Nikki's Restaurant on North Main Street (Sanginiti’s having bit the fiscal dust), and becoming charter members on the spot, they reorganized the club.  The learned discussions that ensued on that signal occasion, establishing a venue for the new Akron Physics Club, are documented in the first entry of these Archives (Oct90). 

     The most significant change voted by the neoframers was the recognition that the most fun (and often most illuminating part) of the old club’s meetings was having dinner and informal discussion with the speaker.  Which is why today we are a “supper club” that has doubled in size in recent years, thanks to a string of outstanding speakers enticed by members of the club — especially by successive Program Chairmen, Leon Marker and Vic Burke.

     Highlights (and sometimes, we hope, the essence of what our speakers had to impart) are summarized in these Archives, which began as merely “Minutes” of the meetings, and later became Newsletters.  As a result, the dates on their labels still refer to the previous meeting — the date of the minutes. Now that the club has entered cyberspace, by clicking on PROGRAMS, the list may be searched by speaker, by subject, or by date — thanks to the University of Akron’s sponsorship of our website, launched in 2001 by Webmaster John Kirszenberg.

     We welcome visitors to our meetings, which are held on the fourth Monday of the month, January-May; September-November.

Jack Gieck
Secretary
12-29-01