The Washington Conferences on Theoretical Physics were ten academic conferences held annually in Washington, D.C., United States from 1935 to 1947. The conferences were organized by nuclear physicists George Gamow and Edward Teller from George Washington University and geophysicist John Adam Fleming from Carnegie Institution of Washington. Topics included nuclear physics, condensed matter physics, geophysics, biophysics, astrophysics and cosmology. These were invitation-only events and small in size, the 1938 conference, for example, consisted of 25 members. [1]
During the 1935 conference, Niels Bohr famously announced the discovery of nuclear fission.
In 1934, geophysicist Merle Tuve of Carnegie Institution, proposed the president of George Washington University (GWU), Cloyd H. Marvin, to open a professorship in theoretical physics to make a bridge between the two institutions. [2] George Gamow was invited and took the position the same year. [2] He accepted under two conditions, he wanted his collaborator Edward Teller to be accepted as well, and he wanted to be responsible of organizing a series of international conferences. [2] [3] John Adam Fleming from Carnegie Institution also joined the organization. [4]
The first conference was held on 1935 on the topic of nuclear physics. The discussion was around the differences between the nucleon magnetic moment and the electron magnetic moment, as well as theories of gamma rays and of beta decay. [5]
The 4th conference in 1938 was on stellar energy and nuclear processes. Hans Bethe inspired by the discussions during the conference, developed in 1939 a theory of stellar nuclear processes, including the theory of the CNO cycle. [2] [5] [6] He received the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. [5]
On January 26, 1939, during the 5th conference on low temperature physics, Bohr made speech on an unrelated topic. [2] He made the first overt announcement to the scientific community on the successful splitting of uranium nuclei by neutron bombardment. [2] The discoveries were made by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, who confirmed the ideas of Otto Robert Frisch and Lise Meitner, colleague of Hahn, in Copenhagen. [7] Teller reports that Tuve reproduced the experiment overnight and invited the participants the next day to observe the fission events in his lab with the aid of a Geiger counter. [8] Scientists rapidly raised concerns that such a discovery could enable Nazi Germany to develop a nuclear weapon. [2] This announcement led to the Einstein–Szilard letter sent to the US president Franklin D. Roosevelt. [2] The implications of this discovery were not communicated to the wider public until 1945. [9]
During 1942, the conferences were postponed due to United States involvement in World War II. [10] During this time, Teller went to work in the Manhattan Project. The project led to the creation of the first atomic bomb. [2]
The conference series restarted in 1946 on the topic of biophysics by recent interest of Gamow on proteins. [5]
The last conference was on gravitation and electromagnetism in November 1947. It followed after the Shelter Island Conference (May 1947) which had reawakened the interest of physicists in quantum field theory. Julian Schwinger was present in both of the conferences and, in-between conferences, worked a preliminary paper on his seminal calculation of the anomalous magnetic dipole moment of the electron (published in 1948). This attracted the attention of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Richard Feynman, both also present at Washington, leading to the development of quantum electrodynamics. [11]
After the 10th conference in 1947, the conferences were discontinued due to a variety of reasons: Gamow had turned his interest into cosmology, Teller had left after the war to work at the University of Chicago and Fleming, co-organizer had stepped down from his position of chief of the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at Carnegie Institution. [10]
In 2003, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg commissioned two bronze plaques that were mounted in the Corcoran Hall of GWU. One about the life and work of Gamow, and another plaque of the 1939 announcement of Bohr. [9] Bohr's plate begins as: [9]
In this room, January 26, 1939, Niels Bohr made the first public announcement of the successful disintegration of uranium into barium with the attendant release of approximately two hundred million electron volts of energy per disintegration. This announcement was heard by the physicists listed below who were attending the fifth of the Conferences on Theoretical Physics which are sponsored jointly by the Carnegie Institution of Washington and The George Washington University.
Here is a list of all the conferences an topics covered: [5]
Year | Main topic |
---|---|
1935 | Nuclear Physics |
1936 | Molecular Physics |
1937 | Problems of Elementary Particles and Nuclear Physics |
1938 | Stellar Energy and Nuclear Processes |
1939 | Low Temperature Physics and Superconductivity |
1940 | Geophysics and the Interior of the Earth |
1941 | Elementary Particles |
1942 | Stellar Evolution and Cosmology |
Gap due to World War II | |
1946 | Physics on Living Matter |
1947 | Gravitation and Electromagnetism |
Aside from Gamow, Teller, Fleming and Tuve, some notable participants include:
Edward Teller was a Hungarian and American theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of the Teller–Ulam design based on Stanisław Ulam's design.
George Gamow was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He was an early advocate and developer of Georges Lemaître's Big Bang theory. Gamow discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay by quantum tunneling, invented the liquid drop model - the first mathematical model of the atomic nucleus, worked on radioactive decay, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, predicted the existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation and molecular genetics. Gamow was a key figure in the development and understanding of quantum tunneling.
Hans Albrecht Bethe was a German-American physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics, and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1967 for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.
Sir John Douglas Cockcroft was an English nuclear physicist who shared the 1951 Nobel Prize in Physics with Ernest Walton for splitting the atomic nucleus, which was instrumental in the development of nuclear power.
Emilio Gino Segrè was an Italian and naturalized-American physicist and Nobel laureate, who discovered the elements technetium and astatine, and the antiproton, a subatomic antiparticle, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1959 along with Owen Chamberlain.
Ben Roy Mottelson was an American-Danish nuclear physicist. He won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the non-spherical geometry of atomic nuclei.
Leo James Rainwater was an American physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1975 for his part in determining the asymmetrical shapes of certain atomic nuclei.
Ralph Asher Alpher was an American cosmologist, who carried out pioneering work in the early 1950s on the Big Bang model, including Big Bang nucleosynthesis and predictions of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, under Werner Heisenberg's leadership. There is ongoing debate as to whether or not he and the other members of the team actively and willingly pursued the development of a nuclear bomb for Germany during this time.
Gregory Breit was an American physicist born in Mykolaiv, Russian Empire. He was a professor at New York University (1929–1934), University of Wisconsin–Madison (1934–1947), Yale University (1947–1968), and University at Buffalo (1968–1973). In 1921, he was Paul Ehrenfest's assistant in Leiden University.
Robert Herman was an American astronomer, best known for his work with Ralph Alpher in 1948–50, on estimating the temperature of cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang explosion.
The Einstein–Szilard letter was a letter written by Leo Szilard and signed by Albert Einstein on August 2, 1939, that was sent to President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt. Written by Szilard in consultation with fellow Hungarian physicists Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner, the letter warned that Germany might develop atomic bombs and suggested that the United States should start its own nuclear program. It prompted action by Roosevelt, which eventually resulted in the Manhattan Project, the development of the first atomic bombs, and the use of these bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Dmitri Dmitrievich Ivanenko was a Soviet theoretical physicist of Ukrainian origin who made great contributions to the physical science of the twentieth century, especially to nuclear physics, field theory, and gravitation theory. He worked in the Poltava Gravimetric Observatory of the Institute of Geophysics of NAS of Ukraine, was the head of the Theoretical Department Ukrainian Physico-Technical Institute in Kharkiv, Head of the Department of Theoretical Physics of the Kharkiv Institute of Mechanical Engineering. Professor of University of Kharkiv, Professor of Moscow State University.
The S-1 Executive Committee laid the groundwork for the Manhattan Project by initiating and coordinating the early research efforts in the United States, and liaising with the Tube Alloys Project in Britain.
The first Shelter Island Conference on the foundations of quantum mechanics was held from June 2–4, 1947 at the Ram's Head Inn in Shelter Island, New York. 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?'"
John Adam Fleming, was an American geophysicist interested in the magnetosphere and the atmospheric electricity. Fleming worked first at the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey with his superior Louis Agricola Bauer, who founded the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. He steadily advanced in the hierarchy of the institute and became its director in 1935. In 1925, Fleming served as president of the Philosophical Society of Washington. Fleming was elected into the National Academy of Sciences in 1940. He was one of the main organizers of the Washington Conferences on Theoretical Physics (1935–1947) with George Gamow.
Charles Louis Critchfield was an American mathematical physicist. A graduate of George Washington University, where he earned his PhD in physics under the direction of Edward Teller in 1939, he conducted research in ballistics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Ballistic Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and received three patents for improved sabot designs.
Lawrence Randolph Hafstad was an American electrical engineer and physicist notable for his pioneering work on nuclear reactors and development of proximity fuzes. In 1939, he created the first nuclear fission reaction in the United States.
Jagdish Mehra was an Indian–American physicist and historian of science.
Max Born was a widely influential German physicist and mathematician who was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics for his pivotal role in the development of quantum mechanics. Born won the prize primarily for his contributions to the statistical interpretation of the wave function, though he is known for his work in several areas of quantum mechanics as well as solid-state physics, optics, and special relativity. Born's entry in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society included thirty books and 330 papers.