First published as ELECTRICAL EXPERIMENTER, the name was changed to SCIENCE AND INVENTION in 1920; the last issue was published in August 1931. One of Hugo Gernsback's famous popular technical magazines. A good short history of this magazine can be found at the eNewsstand project.

The August 1923 and August 1924 issues are considered by some to have been the "first" science-fiction magazines published in the twentieth century. Certainly the success of these two issues led Gernsback to publish a specialized fiction magazine, AMAZING STORIES, beginning in 1926.

Many of the early covers were by famous technical-illustration specialist Howard V. Brown.