Window on the Frontier

On the December cover of Scientific American is a four-color portrait of a camel wearing a nose cone and placidly taking a metabolism test. The table of contents scarcely suggests light reading: "Nucleic Acids and Proteins," "Differentiation in Social Amoebae," "The Proto-Castles of Sardinia." Even the department of games beginning on page 166 is strictly for mathematicians: three computer programers named Ames, Baker and Coombs set out to decide who pays for the beer, but instead of flipping a coin they apply algebraic group theory. (Baker pays.)

Far from being deterred by such formidable monthly fare, readers of Scientific American magazine dote on it, spend an average of four hours and twelve minutes reading each issue, and constantly demand more of the same. This month, without a bit of persuasion from the magazine--which has not invested a dime on circulation promotion this year--circulation climbed to a 114-year high of 250,000. Estimated 1959 gross--$5,000,000--represents a 50% increase over last year, a 4,243% improvement over 1947.

New Breed of Reader. Established in 1845 by Rufus Porter, a Yankee tinkerer and jack-of-all-trades, the magazine grew up as a kind of inventor's catalogue, faithfully reporting Morse's telegraph, Catling's gun, and other newfangled devices of the time. Its Manhattan office was a hangout for inventors; among them Thomas A. Edison, who showed up one day in 1877 with a package under one arm that introduced itself: "Good morning. How do you do? How do you like the talking box?"

The onrushing 20th century stranded Scientific American in the past. Readership dwindled; revenue shrank to a trickle. By 1947, when Gerard Piel, then science editor of LIFE (and grandson of the late Michael Piel, co-founder of New York's Piel Bros, brewery), persuaded two friends to join him in buying Scientific American, about all the three got for their $40,000 were 5,000 solid subscribers, a Manhattan office and a lustrous 102-year-old name. Piel had a theory, and his partners--Dennis Flanagan, also a LIFE editor, and Management Consultant Donald H. Miller Jr.--were willing to test it. In the dawn light of the technological revolution, Piel clearly foresaw the rise of a new breed of technological man. It was his conviction that a magazine beamed at this burgeoning breed would grow right along with it.

Piel was right, but his theory was four years in the proof. To stay abreast of fast-breaking scientific research, he commissioned authoritative reports from men at the frontiers of discovery: Physicist I. I. Rabi, Geneticist George W. Beadle, the late Dr. Albert Einstein and 15 other Nobel prizewinners. The magazine was redesigned to offer a rich reading diet of articles on all the leading science disciplines: the physical, social, technical, medical and life sciences. Scientific American blossomed with graphic color so compelling that a portfolio of illustrations has sold more than 7,000 copies.

No Other Kind. Piel had to apply three times to the magazine's backers* for more money, sank $1,050,000 into the venture before it began to pay. But by 1951 the Scientific American was in the black and attracting the kind of reader Piel went fishing for: scientific Americans, or what he calls "technical management." The magazine's present subscription of 250,000 represents more than 250,000 academic degrees; two of three subscribers work in research; and nearly 80% come from two fields, science and engineering. Scientific American's advertisers find this audience so challenging that the ads often make reading that is as provocative as the editorial content. Said Poet Robert Frost, a longtime subscriber: "I'd rather read the advertisements in this magazine than most literature written elsewhere."

Scientific American remains a magazine for readers of high curiosity and intelligence. It is interested in no other kind, makes no effort to popularize science. "It is not passive entertainment that we offer," says Gerard Piel, crewcut, 44-year-old publisher. "Our goal is to make science intelligible to all who are interested enough to subscribe." The result is a competent, scholarly view of what is going on along the frontier of research.

*Who included the late Gerard Swope, one-time president of General Electric; the late Marshall Field; and John Hay Whitney, U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James's.

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