Founded as the Tokyo Mathematics Society in 1877, one of the oldest societies for natural sciences in Japan

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　
Members
The Physical Society of Japan（JPS） has a membership of some 18,000, including research scientists, teachers and engineers, within and without Japan . Its chief objectives are to publish the research output of latest achievement of physics and to assist in member's research activities. As of 2008, 45% of its members are working in universities, 15% in private corporations and 12% in public research institutes. 14% of its members are graduate and undergraduate students.
 

Establishment of the Predecessor
The JPS is the direct successor of the Tokyo Mathematics Company, Japan 's first academic association of natural sciences, established in 1877. Its birth was not so much behind that of its German counterpart, the German Physics Society, in 1845, and much earlier than the creation of the American Physical Society in 1899. In addition to being one of the global forerunners of such academic associations, its the Mathematics and Physics Journal had been made a European language publication from its fourth volume (1888-1891), demonstrating the earliest members' strong international orientation. With such vision and the fruits of research that it conveyed to the wider audience, it is no exaggeration to say that the Tokyo Mathematics Company was one of the leading agents of Japanese modernization.

Start of the JPS
After World War II, the Mathematics and Physics Society dissolved itself, and two new societies, The Physical Societies of Japan(JPS) and The Mathematical Society of Japan were born in 1946. Although the Mathematics and Physics Society and indeed the entire natural science community suffered from an unfriendly research environment before and during the war, its members continued to conduct world-class, cutting edge research, resulting in the awarding of the Nobel prize to Yukawa Hideki and Tomonaga Shin'ichiro shortly after the war. The happy news created a science fever among the Japanese nation still struggling to recover from the devastations of war, leading many young students to the field of physics. The resulting increase in the number of scientists and the generally friendly atmosphere towards scientific research no doubt contributed to the process of rapid reconstruction and growth the Japanese economy experienced hence, which would have been impossible without an expanded knowledge base.

The JPS of Today
Today, the JPS has around 18,000 members, and 7 members took the Nobel Prize for Physics. It is among the core institutions of physical research in Japan , which is among the world's leading nations in the field. With newly industrializing countries emerging also as research centers, there is high expectation in these countries and beyond on the positive role that JPS can play in their development. Now the JPS has signed agreements with its many oversea counterparts so that members of each body could participate in other bodies and enjoy the rights and privileges of those bodies.
Contribution to operation of Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPPS) is now important activity of the JPS. Recently, the need for cooperation and/or collaboration among Asian physicists has increased substantially in many fields of physics, primarily because Asian contribution to physics is now extremely important and globally visible. Therefore, to establish AAPPS as a true union for all Physical Societies in the Asian and Pacific regions is essentially important for the future of world physical communities.
The JPS discusses the direction for the education of physics should take, and on the basis of those discussions make recommendations and requests to relevant institutions and government agencies. It also organizes international conferences, exchanges information and cooperates with physics societies abroad as well as with international academic bodies and research institutes. The JPS thus plays an important role in the development and progress of physics both domestically and internationally.

Journals of the JPS
The JPS monthly publishes Nihon Butsuri Gakkai-shi(Butsuri) in Japanese to provide information on developments in physics and the physics community to its members. Also, the JPS publishes the journal Daigaku-no-Butsuri Kyoiku (Teaching Physics in College) in Japanese three times a year to facilitate members' exchange of information on the subject.
Its academic publication is the monthly Journal of the Physical Society of Japan(JPSJ) which provides an outlet for research results of Japanese researchers as well as overseas members.  It is devoted to the rapid dissemination of important researches in all fields of physics—from condensed matter physics to particle physics. The Impact Factor of JPSJ in 2010 is 2.905, and this is considerably high among the journals of thid field. Every month, remarkable papers are selected from among the latest published papers by the Editorial Board and posted as Papers of Editors' Choice on the homepage. The background and impact of certain researches are discussed by experts in the News and Comments column. This is considered useful for readers who are interested in recent developments in physics.
In addition, the JPS is now planning to publish new journal, Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP) . PTEP is a new international journal that publishes articles on theoretical and experimental physics. PTEP is the successor to Progress of Theoretical Physics (PTP) , which will terminate in December 2012 and be merged into PTEP in January 2013. PTEP will be a fully open access, online-only journal. Those journals are published via works in Publication Center for Pure and Applied Physics(PCPAP), which is created in cooperation with the Japan Society of Applied Physics(JSAP).　　
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Annual Meetings
The annual meetings of the JPS are held twice a year, in spring and fall, over a period of four days, where its members gather to present their research results and make discussions on them. The main annual assembly, which is usually held in spring, is attended by members from all fieldes of physics. The second assembly, usually held in fall, is organized for two different groups, one covering field of condensed matte physics, and the other comprising the fields of elementary particles, nuclear physics, cosmic rays and astrophysics, and beam physics. More than 5,000 members participate in the meetings and more than 4,000 presentations are made at each meeting. Shares of each field of Physics in the number of presentations in the JPS Annual Meeting in March, 2011 is shown below.

Education and Publicity
General enlightenment and contribution to the field of education are important components of JPS activity.
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