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Philip Frank letter to Hugh Everett, 03-August-1957

Philip Frank

Published May 19, 2011• 0 citations
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Abstract

In his Reviews of Modern Physics article on Hugh Everett's theory, John Wheeler referenced the philosophical writings of Philip Frank, a philosopher of science at Harvard University. In May 1957, Everett sent Frank the Reviews of Modern Physics preprints, along with a letter in which he identified himself with Frank's broadly empiricist world view. Frank replied with some brief, but apparently approving, remarks.

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•May 19, 2011•0 citations
In his Reviews of Modern Physics article on Hugh Everett's theory, John Wheeler referenced the philosophical writings of Philip Frank, a philosopher of science at Harvard University. In May 1957, Everett sent Frank the Reviews of Modern Physics preprints, along with a letter in which he identified himself with Frank's broadly empiricist world view. Frank replied with some brief, but apparently approving, remarks.
In his Reviews of Modern Physics article on Hugh Everett's theory, John Wheeler referenced the philosophical writings of Philip Frank, a philosopher of science at Harvard University. In May 1957, Everett sent Frank the Reviews of Modern Physics preprints, along with a letter in which he identified himself with Frank's broadly empiricist world view. Frank had also written about the historical difficulty of gaining acceptance of new scientific theories, such as the sun-centered solar system proposed by Copernicus. It is probably not a coincidence that Everett referred to Copernicus in his May 31, 1957 correspondence with DeWitt. Writing to Frank on the same day, he referenced the treatment of Copernicus by the 16th century religious and scientific establishment as a way of explaining the rejection of his relative state formulation by Bohr and his followers.
MIT mathematician, physicist, and polymath Norbert Wiener was among the physicists who received preprints of Hugh Everett and John Wheeler's Review of Modern Physics articles. Wiener at this time was developing his own alternative mathematical/interpretive framework for quantum mechanics, and here he projects some of his own views on Everett while offering criticism of Everett's particular approach. Everett, meanwhile, disavows in his marginal comments several of the ideas that Wiener attributes to him.
After the publication of Hugh Everett's thesis and John Wheeler's commentary in the September 1957 issue of Reviews of Modern Physics, several physicists wrote to Everett and Wheeler to discuss the papers. This one, from a physicist at Johns Hopkins named Max Dresden, seems to approve of Everett's contributions, and suggests that it might be related to a project he and a student worked on shortly before. Wheeler, at least at this point, seems interested in continuing to work on topics related to Everett's thesis, and also appears to believe that future publications on related topics are forthcoming. This letter is particularly interesting because it suggests that not only did Wheeler believe Everett could get an academic job at a top university, but that Robert Sachs, a prominent theoretical physicist at University of Wisconsin Madison, was actively attempting to recruit Everett. Everett, however, refused to follow any of these leads.
Henry Margenau was a German physicist and philosopher of physics who had previously written on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. It seems that Hugh Everett---or rather, John Wheeler---sent Everett's thesis to Margenau and other physicists for comments. Margenau was the first to reply, and though he admits to not having looked at the work closely, he appears to approve. Margenau includes a preprint of a paper of his own to be published in the journal Philosophy of Science, and a reprint of an earlier paper from Physical Review.