ABSTRACT
Linguistically speaking, the period 1680-1970 was an anomalous one for science, according to Montgomery: during that time, scientific advances were not dependent on the existence of a single lingua franca. Writing in the April 1996 issue, Scientific American Editor-in-Chief John Rennie feels moved to remind his readers of magazine founder Rufus Porter's description of the publication as a paper that will instruct while it diverts or amuses. Most Scientific American authors are professional scientists describing their own work, with the periodical currently numbering 152 Nobel Prize winners among its contributors. While Scientific American was founded in 1845, it was not until 1890 that the first issue of the Spanish-language La América Científica e Industrial appeared. This was the first foreign edition of the American periodical, and although it was only in existence for less than 20 years. Scientific American is a particularly outstanding example of how translation can be used to create a thoroughly international profile for a publication.
