When I was requested to prepare the lead article for this first issue of the International Journal of Thermophysics, I thought it might be most appropriate on this occasion to reflect on the role of a journal.
Why a new journal? I believe the birth of a new journal reflects a recognition that a given discipline has reached a degree of maturity, and the need exists for the advances in the field to be recorded and documented in a more systematic manner. A scientific journal simply constitutes a convenient vehicle for the deposition and transfer of scholarly writings. The fact that a journal assumes an international aspect reflects the further recognition that the contributions in the field will come from multinational research efforts, thus stressing the need for improved channels of communication. The International Journal of Thermophysics promises to be a depository for contributions in the important area of thermophysical data and theory, irrespective of somewhat arbitrary academic categorizations of disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, engineering, geophysics, biophysics, food technology, etc. Properties of matter are of a universal nature and knowledge of them will be generated and used by engineers and scientists irrespective of what their formal training may be called. For example, the fact that a thermal property determination is carried out at low temperatures does not make these results uniquely of interest to low temperature physicists. Indeed, they constitute primarily data on thermophysics, of interest and value to a broad spectrum of users.
If one accepts the proposition that the discipline of thermophysics, or the ~Director, Center for Information and Numerical Data Analysis and Synthesis (CINDAS), and