Department History
Ed Auld's last great contribution to the UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy (PHAS) was an historical record dubbed "Timeline" by its author. The last version of Ed's original document is available as Auld-PHAS-Timeline.pdf, but it is now superceded by the working version you see here, which was copied into this website by Jess Brewer on 24 Nov 2009 and thereafter became a community project of the Department and friends of Ed Auld. It was Ed's intention that it should not be a static document but an evolving one, incorporating additions and corrections as various members of this community find time to recollect and reflect on our history. This process is meant to be facilitated by this website, which anyone can read and anyone with an account can edit. To get an account, register yourself and edit freely!
NOTE: Until 1996 the Department of Physics evolved in parallel with the Institute of Astronomy and Space Science (IASS), formed in 1970 and housed for many years in the same building with Geophysics. In 1996 the Astronomers joined their Physics colleagues to form the Department of Physics & Astronomy. In order to integrate the histories of the two departments, we have added a link to Gordon Walker's document, "How Astronomy made its name at UBC - pre-1980 reminiscences".