The first Shelter Island Conference on the foundations of
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
was held from June 2–4, 1947 at the Ram's Head Inn in
Shelter Island, New York
Shelter Island is an island Administrative divisions of New York#Town, town in eastern Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk County, New York (state), New York, United States, near the eastern end of Long Island. The population was 3,253 at the time ...
. Shelter Island was the first major opportunity since
Pearl Harbor and the
Manhattan Project for the leaders of the American physics community to gather after the war. As
Julian Schwinger would later recall, "It was the first time that people who had all this physics pent up in them for five years could talk to each other without somebody peering over their shoulders and saying, 'Is this
cleared?'"
The conference, which cost $850, was followed by the
Pocono Conference of 1948 and the
Oldstone Conference of 1949. They were arranged with the assistance of
J. Robert Oppenheimer and the
National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
(NAS). Later Oppenheimer deemed Shelter Island the most successful scientific meeting he had ever attended; and as
Richard Feynman recalled to
Jagdish Mehra in April 1970: "There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this.... The Shelter Island Conference was my first conference with the big men.... I had never gone to one like this in peacetime."
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Organization
The conference was conceived by Duncan A. MacInnes, a electrochemistry researcher at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Once the president of the New York Academy of Sciences, MacInnes had already organized a number of small scientific conferences. However, he believed that the later conferences had suffered from a bloated attendance, and over this issue, he resigned from the academy in January 1945. That fall, he approached the NAS with the idea of a series of 2–3 day conferences limited to 20–25 people. Frank Jewett, the head of the NAS, liked the idea; he envisioned a "meeting at some quiet place where the men could live together intimately", possibly "at an inn somewhere", and suggested that MacInnes focus on a couple of pilot programs. MacInnes' first choice was "The Nature of Biopotentials", a subject close to his own heart; the second would be "The Postulates of Quantum Mechanics", which later became "Foundations of Quantum Mechanics".
Karl K. Darrow, a theoretical physicist at Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...
and secretary of the American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
, offered his help in organizing the quantum mechanics conference. The two decided to try to emulate the success of the early Solvay Conferences, and they consulted with Léon Brillouin, who had some experience in that area. In turn, Brillouin suggested consulting Wolfgang Pauli, the recent Nobel medalist at the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...
in Princeton.
In January 1946, MacInnes, Darrow, Brillouin, and Pauli met in New York and exchanged letters. Pauli was enthusiastic about the topic, but he was primarily interested in bringing together the international physics community after the ordeal of the war. He suggested a large conference, including many older, foreign physicists, much to MacInnes' chagrin. With Jewett's encouragement, MacInnes asked Pauli for suggestions of "younger men" such as John Archibald Wheeler, explaining that the Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...
would support only a small conference. Pauli and Wheeler replied that MacInnes' conference might be merged with Niels Bohr
Niels Henrik David Bohr (, ; ; 7 October 1885 – 18 November 1962) was a Danish theoretical physicist who made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and old quantum theory, quantum theory, for which he received the No ...
's conference on Wave Mechanics in Denmark
Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...
in 1947; they pointed out that the Niels Bohr Institute had close ties with the Rockefeller Foundation anyway. Darrow wrote to Wheeler that Bohr's conference was a poor replacement because it would draw few Americans. Finally, Shelter Island was explicitly an American conference. Darrow was chairman of the conference.
Proceedings
Lamb shift
Willis Lamb had found when probing hydrogen atoms with microwave beams that one of the two possible quantum states had slightly more energy than predicted by the Dirac theory; this became known as the Lamb shift. Lamb had discovered the shift a few weeks before (with Robert Retherford), so this was a major talking point at the conference. As it was known that the Dirac theory was incomplete, the small difference was an indication that quantum electrodynamics
In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the Theory of relativity, relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quant ...
(QED) was progressing.
Electron magnetic moment
Another dramatic discovery was reported at the conference by Isidor Rabi; a precise measurement of the magnetic moment of the electron, though this was overshadowed by Lamb's work.
Mesons
Marshak presented his two-meson hypothesis about the pi-meson, which were discovered shortly thereafter.
QED
Richard Feynman gave an informal presentation about his work on quantum electrodynamics
In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the Theory of relativity, relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quant ...
. He gave a more formal, and less successful, presentation on QED at the Pocono Conference next year.
Participants
The participants arrived Sunday evening, 1 June 1947, and left Wednesday evening. They were:
* Hans Bethe
* David Bohm
* Gregory Breit
* Karl K. Darrow
* Herman Feshbach
* Richard Feynman
* Hendrik Kramers
* Willis Lamb
* Duncan A. MacInnes
* Robert Eugene Marshak
*John von Neumann
John von Neumann ( ; ; December 28, 1903 – February 8, 1957) was a Hungarian and American mathematician, physicist, computer scientist and engineer. Von Neumann had perhaps the widest coverage of any mathematician of his time, in ...
* Arnold Nordsieck
* J. Robert Oppenheimer
* Abraham Pais
* Linus Pauling
* Isidor Isaac Rabi
* Bruno Rossi
* Julian Schwinger
* Robert Serber
* Edward Teller
* George Uhlenbeck
* John Hasbrouck Van Vleck
*Victor Frederick Weisskopf
Victor Frederick "Viki" Weisskopf (also spelled Viktor; September 19, 1908 – April 22, 2002) was an Austrian-born American theoretical physicist. He did postdoctoral work with Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli, and Niels ...
* John Archibald Wheeler
See also
* Solvay Conference
* Washington Conference on Theoretical Physics (November 1947)
* Chapel Hill Conference
* List of physics conferences
References
;Primary sources
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External links
The Shelter Island Conference
from the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
Excerpt from 1983 issue
of Physics Today
This Month in Physics History, June 2000
from The American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...
Shelter island conference
from Issues in Science and Technology Summer 1997, provided by ProQuest
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ProQuest is known for its applications and information services for l ...
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