I recommend the April 1929 issue. I found this in an antique store 10+ years ago, and it has (at least) two articles of interest:
The main one is "Einstein's Topsy-Turvy world", complete with picture of the 50-year old Einstein with dark hair. It talks about his "Unified Field Theory" book, attempting to explain it to a 1920's lay audience. It includes an artist's rendition of the 4th dimension.
I also found interesting an article about someone learning to fly. This is 26 years after the Wright brothers and aviation is still young.
ot1138
My dad subscribed to these for many years from the 50s-70s. I used to sit in our attic reading old issues, with projects based around vacuum tubes, transistors, lasers (!) and even surveillance. It seriously ignited my love of engineering.
I came across new issues in the 90s as an adult and the articles seemed to be quite dumbed down. It had lost the magic of those old issues.
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pfdietz
Popular Science shuttered the print version of the magazine in April 2021 after 151 years of publication. The online version, which was started in 2021 and published quarterly, only lasted until November 2023.
I stumbled on an April 1950 article predating and predicting the H-Bomb: "Production of the hydrogen atomic bomb has been ordered by the President of the United States. Within one to three years, it is unofficially predicted, the first of the most awesome military weapons ever built may be ready for test."
And sure enough in the 1950s when the U.S. had a can-do government that could get things done on schedule did it within "one to three years" as predicted:
- Operation Greenhouse in 1951 as first successful release of nuclear fusion energy raised expectations to a near certainty that the concept would work. (1)
- Then on 1 November 1952, the Teller–Ulam configuration was tested at full scale in the "Ivy Mike" shot at an island in the Enewetak Atoll. (2)
Somehow I had the impression that in the 1950s, the government and the press (at the government's behest) were much more secretive about how the H-bomb would work, but I found the Popular Science article surprisingly informative. We say thermonuclear weapon rather than H-bomb these days, but I didn't see anything in the article that seemed inaccurate compared to what's known publicly today.
I took a look at the 1992 Best of What's New edition and got a blast of nostalgia. My favorite part was always the classified ads at the back of the magazine. Got scammed out of a buck by one of those "make money at home" ads.
One thing I was surprised by was how enjoyable and high-quality the main section color ads seem compared to the online ads I mostly see today
wannabebarista
I've been reading the first few years of Popular Science for a project [0]. In the 1870s, the magazine is an interesting slice of science and philosophy. It really shows the breadth and power of Edward Youmans' network.
Here's a cool article [1] about how the founding of Popular Science was bound up with Herbert Spencer's book The Study of Sociology (1873) and was printed on a shoestring budget.
I built and still use Ken Issac’s superchair from PopSci. It’s been great to have everything in arms length. Added things like Lights (and upgrades to LED). Pop Sci and the sister Mechanics Illustrated were the best.
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throwaway48476
Such archives are the vast untapped pool of AI training data.
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[deleted]
veunes
> The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Popular Science fosters a sense of responsibility and agency (in a way)
pknerd
wish the entire thing was downloadable
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spacephysics
Unfortunately recent issues since the last couple elections have become partisan. We should stop using scientific institutions as means to political ends. Its bad for science in general, and sows distrust.
No one who reads scientific american supports X candidate will suddenly vote for them. However, people who see scientific american has begun to play in the political arena will think less of them. Myself and some friends have agreed they should stick with what they know, and not become a political instrument
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[deleted]
neuroelectron
Not sure you're qualified to comment here if you don't already have all these downloaded somewhere on an external drive.
I recommend the April 1929 issue. I found this in an antique store 10+ years ago, and it has (at least) two articles of interest:
The main one is "Einstein's Topsy-Turvy world", complete with picture of the 50-year old Einstein with dark hair. It talks about his "Unified Field Theory" book, attempting to explain it to a 1920's lay audience. It includes an artist's rendition of the 4th dimension.
I also found interesting an article about someone learning to fly. This is 26 years after the Wright brothers and aviation is still young.
My dad subscribed to these for many years from the 50s-70s. I used to sit in our attic reading old issues, with projects based around vacuum tubes, transistors, lasers (!) and even surveillance. It seriously ignited my love of engineering.
I came across new issues in the 90s as an adult and the articles seemed to be quite dumbed down. It had lost the magic of those old issues.
Popular Science shuttered the print version of the magazine in April 2021 after 151 years of publication. The online version, which was started in 2021 and published quarterly, only lasted until November 2023.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/business/media/popular-sc...
I stumbled on an April 1950 article predating and predicting the H-Bomb: "Production of the hydrogen atomic bomb has been ordered by the President of the United States. Within one to three years, it is unofficially predicted, the first of the most awesome military weapons ever built may be ready for test."
https://books.google.ca/books?id=DC0DAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA1...
And sure enough in the 1950s when the U.S. had a can-do government that could get things done on schedule did it within "one to three years" as predicted:
- Operation Greenhouse in 1951 as first successful release of nuclear fusion energy raised expectations to a near certainty that the concept would work. (1)
- Then on 1 November 1952, the Teller–Ulam configuration was tested at full scale in the "Ivy Mike" shot at an island in the Enewetak Atoll. (2)
Somehow I had the impression that in the 1950s, the government and the press (at the government's behest) were much more secretive about how the H-bomb would work, but I found the Popular Science article surprisingly informative. We say thermonuclear weapon rather than H-bomb these days, but I didn't see anything in the article that seemed inaccurate compared to what's known publicly today.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Greenhouse
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#History
Wow, this is fantastic! Like falling down a rabbit hole. I spent the afternoon aimlessly doing searches to dig up fun articles, like these ones:
* Graphic displays for home computers (https://books.google.com/books?id=OQEAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA109&pg=...)
* A 1900 article on the New York Botanical Garden (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...)
* Scenes on the Planets, 1900 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...)
* A 1915 article on Rutherford's ideas on atomic structure (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...)
* The discovery of radium; they even hint at what we now know as radon (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...)
* William Hawkins describing the TRS-80 and Apple-II in 1978 (https://books.google.com/books?id=qQAAAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA6&pg=PA...)
I think it’s a great time to build a retro magazine search engine. We also have Byte magazine's archive (https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm) and CACM's old archive in public access (https://dl.acm.org/magazine/cacm).
I took a look at the 1992 Best of What's New edition and got a blast of nostalgia. My favorite part was always the classified ads at the back of the magazine. Got scammed out of a buck by one of those "make money at home" ads.
One thing I was surprised by was how enjoyable and high-quality the main section color ads seem compared to the online ads I mostly see today
I've been reading the first few years of Popular Science for a project [0]. In the 1870s, the magazine is an interesting slice of science and philosophy. It really shows the breadth and power of Edward Youmans' network.
Here's a cool article [1] about how the founding of Popular Science was bound up with Herbert Spencer's book The Study of Sociology (1873) and was printed on a shoestring budget.
[0] https://bcmullins.github.io/research-from-1873/
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/986404
I built and still use Ken Issac’s superchair from PopSci. It’s been great to have everything in arms length. Added things like Lights (and upgrades to LED). Pop Sci and the sister Mechanics Illustrated were the best.
Such archives are the vast untapped pool of AI training data.
> The future is going to be better, and science and technology are the driving forces that will help make it better.
Popular Science fosters a sense of responsibility and agency (in a way)
wish the entire thing was downloadable
Unfortunately recent issues since the last couple elections have become partisan. We should stop using scientific institutions as means to political ends. Its bad for science in general, and sows distrust.
No one who reads scientific american supports X candidate will suddenly vote for them. However, people who see scientific american has begun to play in the political arena will think less of them. Myself and some friends have agreed they should stick with what they know, and not become a political instrument
Not sure you're qualified to comment here if you don't already have all these downloaded somewhere on an external drive.