Annalen der Physik

Annalen der Physik is one of the oldest scientific journals on physics; it has been published since 1799. The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers on experimental, theoretical, applied, and mathematical physics and related areas. The editor-in-chief is Stefan Hildebrandt. Prior to 2008, its ISO 4 abbreviation was Ann. Phys. , after 2008 it became Ann. Phys. .
The journal is the successor to Journal der Physik, published from 1790 until 1794, and Neues Journal der Physik, published from 1795 until 1797. The journal has been published under a variety of names during its history.

WWW wiley-vch.de/publish/en/j...DOI 10.1002/(ISSN)1521-3889

History

Originally, Annalen der Physik was published in German, then a leading scientific language. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the journal published in both German and English. Initially, only foreign authors contributed articles in English but from the 1970s German-speaking authors increasingly wrote in English in order to reach an international audience. After the German reunification in 1990, English became the only language of the journal.
The importance of Annalen der Physik unquestionably peaked in 1905 with Albert Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers. In the 1920s, the journal lost ground to the concurrent Zeitschrift für Physik. With the 1933 emigration wave, German-language journals lost many of their best authors. During Nazi Germany, it was considered to represent "the more conservative elements within the German physics community", alongside Physikalische Zeitschrift. Between 1944 and 1946 publication ceased due to World War II. Granted permission to restart by Soviet military authorities in August 1946, the journal subsequently maintained a policy until 1992 of co-editorship by one person from East Germany and one from West Germany. After German reunification, the journal was acquired by Wiley-VCH.
A relaunch of the journal with new editor and new contents was announced for 2012. As a result of the 2012 relaunch, Annalen der Physik changed scope and updated the membership of the editorial board.

Editors

The early editors-in-chief were:

With each editor, the numbering of volumes restarted from 1. The journal was often referred to by the editor's name: Gilberts Annalen, Poggendorfs Annalen, Wiedemanns Annalen and so on, or for short Pogg. Ann., Wied. Ann.
After Drude, the work was divided between two editors: experimentalists Wilhelm Wien and Eduard Grüneisen and theoretician Max Planck.
In these times, peer-review was not yet standard. Einstein, for example, just sent his manuscripts to Planck, who then published them.

Notable published works

Some of the most famous papers published in Annalen der Physik were:

on solving the equations that arise in electrical circuit analysis by Gustav Kirchhoff,
on stretched exponential relaxation by Rudolf Kohlrausch,
on stretched exponential relaxation by Friedrich Kohlrausch,
on the photoelectric effect by Heinrich Hertz,
on blackbody radiation by Max Planck,
on capillarity by Albert Einstein,
the Annus Mirabilis papers by Albert Einstein on photons and the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, on mass–energy equivalence, and the special theory of relativity
on the heat capacities of solids with quantized energy levels by Einstein,
on molecular motion near absolute zero by Einstein and Otto Stern,
on the general theory of relativity by Einstein

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in:
According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2024 impact factor of 2.5.