Foreword

Abstract

The Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas held its First National Congress at the Ateneo de Manila University from April 13-15, 1982, in conjunction with the Fourth National Convention of Physics Teachers. The Congress brought together many of the active physicists in the country and focused their attention on the plight of physics in the Philippines today. This was not an exercise in negative feedback for although the deplorable stage of physics as a research science was often enough mentioned, the very fact of drawing together this group of physicists and interested physics teachers from all over the country helped relieve the sense of frustration among the professionals in physics. As will be seen in the speeches which are printed in this volume, even the majority of the attendees of the Congress — the physics teachers at the secondary and tertiary level — shared the views of the keynote speakers that physics is essentially a research science and needs to move ahead in this direction.  This encouraged the SPP in its own convictions.