The Scientific Establishment and the Transmission of Quantum Mechanics to the United States, 1919-32

Abstract

During the first half of the twentieth century large numbers of Americans achieved high eminence in almost every scientific field. No aspect of that development was more surprising -or fruitful-than the appearance in American universities late in the 1920S of dynamic centers for research and study in modern theoretical physics. This advance was tied inextricably to the transmission from European universities of quantum mechanics, the foundation of modern atomic and subatomic theory. After 1927, as physicists applied quantum mechanics to the study of the atomic nucleus, molecular particles, solids, liquids, gases, and the principles of chemical bonding, the generation of Americans trained during the 1920S and their students moved into the forefront of the world's physicists as theoretical innovators. The rapid communication of quantum mechanics to the United States strikingly indicates the importance of those factors that contributed to the general upgrading of American science. Research by other scholars suggests that similar factors may have encouraged advances in some of the social sciences also.'

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