Sir, Martin Rees, head of the Royal Society, laments the decline in the study of physics (report, Aug 11).
Half a century ago Professor H. S. W. Massey, then president of the Physical Society, equally lamented the rapidly growing shortage of trained physicists and complained in a speech to the Royal Institution that schools were not playing the part they should (“Not enough physicists”, May 12, 1955).
Not much change in the intervening decades then.
JOHN HARVEY
Farnham, Surrey