Shelter Island conference

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."... 

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. 

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

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. 

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