John Wheeler letter to Alexander Stern 25-May-1956
JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELER
Abstract
Alexander Stern was an American physicist and engineer who spent many years during the 1950s and 1960s is residence at Bohr's Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen. In April, 1956 a copy of the long version of Everett's thesis was sent to the Institute; the next month, Wheeler traveled to Copenhagen to discuss the thesis with Bohr and others. Soon after he left, Stern held a seminar on Everett's work, during which he recorded some of the reactions of members of the Institute to Everett's ideas. After the seminar, Stern wrote a long letter to Wheeler describing his own (and reporting on his colleagues') dissatisfaction with Everett's theory. Here Wheeler replies to Stern. This letter shows both sides of Wheeler delicate position on his student's work: on the one hand, he defends Everett, while simultaneously insisting that Everett's theory is not in conflict with Bohr's. One copy of the letter went to Everett; this copy remained with Wheeler. Wheeler makes several additional marginal notes on the letter, as it seems, did Everett's fellow graduate student Charles Misner. Misner defends Everett against Stern's attacks.