TIME's editors have been choosing a Man of the Year--the man whose imprint was most prominent in the year's events--ever since 1927, when the first choice was Charles A. Lindbergh. At times, the Man of the Year has been a symbolic figure (the American fighting man in Korea, 1950; the Hungarian Freedom Fighter, 1956), a woman (Queen Elizabeth, 1952), or even a couple (Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kaishek, 1937). This year tradition takes a new twist: for the first time, the cover belongs to the Men of the Year--15 brilliant Americans, exemplars of the scientists who are remaking man's world.

Probably any one of the 15 Men of 1960 would instantly recognize the background of the composite cover. It represents a uranium atom, one of the pertinent symbols of their tradition-shattering technology. It comes from a glowing model made for a LIFE photograph a dozen years ago by Photographer Fritz Goro. The ten tedious days he spent doing it almost qualified Goro for a scientific degree. Clear Christmas-tree lights, dyed and redyed until they reached just the right shade, were used for the protons and neutrons that cluster in the nucleus of the atom.

A single blue bulb, revolved by hand in careful rhythmic paths, was used to suggest the atom's 92 electrons. The position of the camera was shifted constantly; 33 different time exposures were made and four separate lenses were used before Goro finally finished his picture.

Collecting the portraits of the 15 Men of the Year also proved complicated. In the two weeks before this issue went to press, reporters and photographers tracked their men down from San Francisco to Stockholm. Physicist Donald Glaser, who had gone to Stockholm to receive a Nobel Prize, was trailed from Stockholm to London to Geneva, where he was finally found relaxing at a ski resort. To TIME'S reporter, the few moments he finally had with Glaser added up to a "vest-pocket" interview. To the scientist, the care and thoroughness of TIME'S investigations into his life and his work made it seem as if he had been under surveillance "by armies of TIME reporters ever since I set foot on European soil."-

BEGINNING with this issue, two new regional editions of TIME International will replace TIME Pacific. They will be: TIME South Pacific, printed in Melbourne, circulation 69,000, and TIME Asia, printed in Tokyo, circulation 67,000. These new editions will offer greater flexibility for advertising directed to TIME'S expanding public in the burgeoning Pacific area. Editorial content of the two new editions will be identical with that of the U.S. edition. With the two newcomers, TIME has six editions (the others outside the U.S.: TIME Atlantic, TIME Canada and TIME Latin America) with total circulation of over 3,000,000.

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