The Society for Amateur Scientists (SAS) was a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to "helping ordinary people do extraordinary science".
The Society for Amateur Scientists was the brainchild of Shawn Carlson, Ph.D., a physicist from the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Particle Astrophysics.
Inspired by the example of his grandfather, a gifted amateur scientist named George Donald Graham, Carlson founded SAS in San Diego, California on January 1, 1994.
In December, 2008 Discover Magazine named three SAS members–Forrest Mims, Ely Silk and Bill Hilton–to be amongst the "50 Best Brains In Science".
A new domain, soamsci.org, was created to hold the final SAS web site and the complete archive of TCS articles.