Shelter Island Conference facts for kids

The first Shelter Island Conference was a very important meeting about the basics of quantum mechanics. It happened from June 2 to 4, 1947, at the Ram's Head Inn in Shelter Island, New York.

This conference was the first big chance for leading American physicists to meet after Pearl Harbor and the Manhattan Project. During the war, many scientists worked on secret projects. As physicist Julian Schwinger later said, "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?'" This shows how excited they were to share ideas freely again.

The conference cost $850. It was followed by two other important meetings: the Pocono Conference in 1948 and the Oldstone Conference in 1949. These events were organized with help from J. Robert Oppenheimer and the National Academy of Sciences. Oppenheimer later called the Shelter Island Conference the most successful science meeting he had ever been to. Richard Feynman, another famous physicist, said it was the most important conference he had ever attended. He remembered it as his first conference with "the big men" in physics during peacetime.

Why Was the Conference Held?

The idea for the conference came from Duncan A. MacInnes. He was a scientist who studied electrochemistry at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. MacInnes had organized smaller science meetings before. However, he felt that later conferences had too many people, which made them less effective.

In 1945, MacInnes suggested to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that they hold a series of small, focused conferences. These meetings would last 2–3 days and have only 20–25 people. Frank B. Jewett, who led the NAS, liked the idea. He imagined a meeting "at some quiet place where the men could live together intimately," maybe "at an inn somewhere."

MacInnes suggested two main topics for these pilot conferences. One was about "Biopotentials," which was his own area of study. The second topic was "The Postulates of Quantum Mechanics," which later became "Foundations of Quantum Mechanics."

How the Meeting Was Planned

Karl K. Darrow, a physicist from Bell Labs, helped organize the quantum mechanics conference. MacInnes and Darrow wanted to make the conference as successful as the early Solvay Conferences, which were famous international physics meetings. They asked Léon Brillouin, who had experience with such events, for advice. Brillouin then suggested they talk to Wolfgang Pauli, a Nobel Prize winner.

In 1946, MacInnes, Darrow, Brillouin, and Pauli met and exchanged letters. Pauli was very excited about the topic. However, he wanted to bring together physicists from all over the world after the war. He suggested a large conference with many older, foreign physicists. MacInnes, with encouragement from Jewett, explained that the Rockefeller Foundation would only support a small meeting. He asked Pauli to suggest "younger men" like John Archibald Wheeler.

Pauli and Wheeler thought MacInnes's conference might combine with Niels Bohr's conference in Denmark in 1947. But Darrow wrote that Bohr's conference would not attract many Americans. So, the Shelter Island Conference was planned specifically as an American meeting. Darrow became the chairman of the conference.

Key Discoveries Discussed

The Shelter Island Conference was a place where new and exciting discoveries in physics were shared.

The Lamb Shift

One of the most important discussions was about the Lamb shift. Willis Lamb had recently found that when he studied hydrogen atoms, one of their quantum states had slightly more energy than predicted by the Dirac theory. This small difference showed that the understanding of quantum electrodynamics (QED) was improving.

Electron Magnetic Moment

Another important discovery was shared by Isidor Isaac Rabi. He had made a very precise measurement of the electron's magnetic moment. While this was a big achievement, it was somewhat overshadowed by Lamb's new findings.

Mesons

Physicist Robert Eugene Marshak presented his idea about two types of pi-mesons. These particles were discovered shortly after the conference, proving his idea was correct.

Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)

Richard Feynman gave an informal talk about his work on quantum electrodynamics (QED). This was a new way of understanding how light and matter interact. He gave a more formal, but less successful, presentation on QED at the next year's Pocono Conference.

Who Attended the Conference?

The scientists arrived on Sunday evening, June 1, 1947, and left on Wednesday evening. Here are some of the famous physicists who were there: