Shelter Island

For two-electron systems (He, H2) the method with different orbitals for different electrons was thoroughly discussed at the Shelter Island Conference in 1951 (Kotani 1951, Taylor and Parr 1952, Mulliken 1952). A generalization of this method to many-electron systems has now been given (Lowdin 1954, 1955, Itoh and Yoshizumi 1955) and is called the method with different orbitals for different spins. 

Kotani, M., Proc. Shelter Island Conference on Quantum Mechanical Methods in Valence Theory, p. 139. Best orbital for the hydrogen molecule."... 

See Mulliken, Life, 136 and S. S. Schweber, "Shelter Island, Pocono, and Oldstone The Emergence of American Quantum Electrodynamics after World War II," Osiris, 2d ser., 2 (1986) 265302, on 277. John Van Vleck was present (279). 

Fig. 8.21 Dissolved and coUoidal concentrations of metals measured in the groundwater of Shelter Island and in the Peconics (North and South Forks of Long Island). Reprinted with permission from Sanudo-Wilhelmy SA, Rossi FK, Bokuniewicz H, Paulsen RJ (2002) Trace metal levels in groundwater of a coastal watershed importance of colloidal forms. Environ Sci Technol 36 1435-1441. Copyright 2002 American Chemical Society...

Ram s Head Inn on Shelter Island, in Gardiners Bay at the Eastern end of Long Island, was the venue for a conference that was considered epoch-making for the emerging field of quantum chemistry by the participants. The National Academy of Sciences sponsored the Conference on Quantum-Mechanical Methods in Valence Theory with financial support of the Office of Naval Research. 

In 1951 an international conference was held at Shelter Island near Long Island in New York, N.Y. Most of the leading figures in quantum chemistry were present. Two persons there symbolized the phasing out of desktop mechanical calculators (Prof. Kotani from Japan) and the phasing in of electronic digital computers (Prof. Roothaan of the United Sates). That was the first major conference with a focus on the emerging computer in theoretical chemistry [1],... 

Hundreds of physics conferences have been held since World War II, but with little doubt, the most influential conference of them all occurred on June 2, 3, and 4, 1947 on Shelter Island at the eastern end of Long Island. This conference occurred soon after physicists had returned firom their wartime work designing the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, developing radar systems at MIT, or on other war-related projects in laboratories located around the country. Most of the physicists had returned to their prewar faculty positions and were looking ahead. It was an auspicious time for a conference. 

The physicists invited to the Shelter Island conference met in New York City on Sunday, June 1 at the American Institute of Physics, boarded a battered old bus, rode across the length of Long Island, transferred to a ferry, and finally arrived at the Ram s Head bin, where the conference was held. 

The Shelter Island conference was designed to allow an elite... 

The two reports that started the deliberations of the Shelter Island Conference in 1947 and dominated much of the ensuing discussions were given by Wilis Lamb and Rabi. Both reports brought fresh data to the participants, data laid bare by the technology that came out of World War II. In the process. Lamb and Rabi exposed the possible discrepancy in Dirac theory that laid dormant throughout the world conflict. 

The paper that reported these results ended with the recognition that there was a problem Whether the failure of theory and experiment to agree is because of some unknown factor in the theory of the hydrogen atom or simply an error in the estimate of one of the natural constants, such as [the fine structure constant], only further experiment can decide. This was the result that Rabi conveyed to the physicists at Shelter Island. Rabi s reputation as an experimentalist brought credibility to the measured results and issued a challenge to the theorists. As with the Lamb shift, it was quantum electrodynamics that was brought to bear on... 

Quoted in Silvan S. Schweber s account of the Shelter Island Conference in his excellent book QED and the Men Who Made It Dyson,... 

Figure 7 Plot comparing variations in SGD at Shelter Island, NY, between an automated seepage meter and the continuous radon method.

The conference was to be held between September 8 and 10, 1951, at Ram s Head Inn in a beautiful setting on Shelter Island, Long Island, New York. Twenty-five people attended the meeting, of which 18 were Americans, and 5 were British. From the United States came T. H. Berlin, B. L. Crawford, H. Eyring, J. O. Hirschfelder, G. E. Kimball, D. A. Macinnes, H. Margenau, J. E. Mayer, R. S. Mulliken, R. G. Parr, K. S. 

Because of the war, Kotani traveled abroad for the first time in 1950. He visited Paris and was relieved to hear the confirmation of the president of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics that Japan had continued to be a member even during war years. It was suggested by the president that an international conference on theoretical physics should be organized in Japan. Kotani took this advice seriously, and in 3 years time the conference took place. In 1951, Kotani made a longer journey not only to Europe but also to the United States. He met first Coulson in London and then traveled to the United States to attend the Shelter Island Conference, where he finally got acquainted with many molecular scientists he knew only through their... 

At Nikko, presentations and ensuing discussions centered on the refinement of approximations used in molecular problems, the extension of methods to deal with larger molecules, crystals, and solids, and the assessment of the state of calculations of molecular integrals after the Shelter Island Conference. 

Four years after the Shelter Island Conference and 1 year after the Nikko Symposium, it had become clear that commercially developed computers could handle programs for large computations in the foreseeable future. But although computer technology was making big strides, the cost for using them remained forbidding. 

The Conference on Molecular Quantum Mechanics held at Boulder, Colorado, in June 1959 was the culmination of a succession of meetings convened after the Shelter Island Conference with the express purpose of dealing with computations of complicated integrals accompanying the move from human computers to desk calculators to electronic digital computers. 

---