History of Physics Publishing at Taylor & Francis
At Taylor & Francis we have a strong tradition of publishing in the Physical Sciences. In 1798 Richard Taylor began publishing Philosophical Magazine, the first commercially published scientific journal. Edited by Alexander Tilloch and initially covering the whole of Natural Philosophy, the journal gradually became focussed on the Physical Sciences under the Editorship of John Tyndall and Lord Kelvin (1851-1904 and) and eventually came to concentrate on Condensed Matter Physics in the 1950s with Sir Nevill Mott at the helm.
In the 1950s a number of journals were launched to build on the success of Phil Mag and the strength of T&F in the area of Condensed Matter Physics. Among these, Advances in Physics is consistently rated amongst the most influential condensed matter physics journals, with an Impact Factor of 10.421 in the 2005 Journal Citation Reports published by Thomson Scientific.
Contemporary Physics was launched in 1949 to publish short review articles providing an overview of important recent developments in Physics as well as providing a useful review section on recently published Physics books.
In 1987, almost 200 years after the launch of Phil Mag, the sister title Philosophical Magazine Letters began life.
In 2003 we were proud to make available the entire back catalogue of the Journal of Modern Optics online, going right back to its inception as Optica Acta in 1953.
The journals portfolio is supported by a high quality books portfolio that was strengthened by the acquisition of the Institute of Physics books list in 2005.
Today we publish a broad range of books and journals covering the fields of Astrophysics, Biophysics, Fluid Dynamics, Crystallography, Plasma Physics, Nuclear Physics, Optics and Materials Science.
