Leon Rosenfeld was a close collaborator of Niels Bohr's, with whom both Hugh Everett and John Wheeler discussed Everett's work. After the initial debate with Bohr and his collaborators, during which nether side was convinced of the other's position, Rosenfeld took the role of defender of the faith. In a series of letters to various physicists, Rosenfeld harshly criticized Everett and his work. Here Rosenfeld reports the Copenhagen line on Everett's thesis to an industrial physicist in Massachusetts.
Leon Rosenfeld was a close collaborator of Niels Bohr's, with whom both Hugh Everett and John Wheeler discussed Everett's work. After the initial debate with Bohr and his collaborators, during which nether side was convinced of the other's position, Rosenfeld took the role of defender of the faith. In a series of letters to various physicists, Rosenfeld harshly criticized Everett and his work. Here Rosenfeld reports the Copenhagen line on Everett's thesis to an industrial physicist in Massachusetts.
Leon Rosenfeld was a close collaborator of Niels Bohr's, with whom both Hugh Everett and John Wheeler discussed Everett's work. After the initial debate with Bohr and his collaborators, during which nether side was convinced of the other's position, Rosenfeld took the role of defender of the faith. In a series of letters to various physicists, Rosenfeld harshly criticized Everett and his work. F. J. Belinfante was a physicist at Purdue university. In 1972, he and Rosenfeld had an extended correspondence concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics, including discussions of both Everett and Leslie Ballentine, another physicist working on the foundations of quantum mechanics. (The present archive only contains Rosenfeld's replies to Belinfante.) This is the fourth letter in the series. Rosenfeld apologizes for not replying to a previous letter, but defers further comments.
Leon Rosenfeld was a close collaborator of Niels Bohr's, with whom both Hugh Everett and John Wheeler discussed Everett's work. After the initial debate with Bohr and his collaborators, during which nether side was convinced of the other's position, Rosenfeld took the role of defender of the faith. In a series of letters to various physicists, Rosenfeld harshly criticized Everett and his work. F. J. Belinfante was a physicist at Purdue university. In 1972, he and Rosenfeld had an extended correspondence concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics, including discussions of both Everett and Leslie Ballentine, another physicist working on the foundations of quantum mechanics. (The present archive only contains Rosenfeld's replies to Belinfante.) This is the fifth and final letter in the series. Rosenfeld seems to grant that Belinfante's criticisms of Everett are sound, though he continues to disagree that the interpretation merits further discussion.
Leon Rosenfeld was a close collaborator of Niels Bohr's, with whom both Hugh Everett and John Wheeler discussed Everett's work. After the initial debate with Bohr and his collaborators, during which nether side was convinced of the other's position, Rosenfeld took the role of defender of the faith. In a series of letters to various physicists, Rosenfeld harshly criticized Everett and his work. F. J. Belinfante was a physicist at Purdue university. In 1972, he and Rosenfeld had an extended correspondence concerning the foundations of quantum mechanics, including discussions of both Everett and Leslie Ballentine, another physicist working on the foundations of quantum mechanics. (The present archive only contains Rosenfeld's replies to Belinfante.) This is the first letter in the series. Everett is mentioned and dismissed; in later letters, Rosenfeld objects to Belinfante's attempts to reconstruct Everett favorably.
In spring of 1956, John Wheeler was in residence at the Lorentz Institute in Leiden, Netherlands. In April, 1956 a copy of the long version of Hugh Everett's thesis was sent to the Institute; the next month, Wheeler traveled to Copenhagen to discuss the thesis with Bohr and others. This is a letter he wrote to Everett after he returned to Leiden, following up on his letter from the day before (in which he forwarded Alexander Stern's criticisms to Everett). Here he includes his notes from a conversation with Niels Bohr — dated 4 May 1956 — on Everett's thesis, and urges Everett to come to Copenhagen immediately to discuss his work with Bohr. He includes an offer to pay for Everett's travel from his own research funds. Although Everett would ultimately travel to Copenhagen in 1959, he did not accept the invitation Wheeler extends here.
In spring of 1956, John Wheeler was in residence at the Lorentz Institute in Leiden, Netherlands. In April, 1956 a copy of the long version of Hugh Everett's thesis was sent to the Institute; the next month, Wheeler traveled to Copenhagen to discuss the thesis with Bohr and others. Shortly after he left, Alexander Stern, an American physicist in residence in Copenhagen, held a seminar on Everett's thesis, and then forwarded his and others' ciriticisms in a long letter to Wheeler. Based on Stern's letter and on his own conversations with Bohr, Wheeler determined that Everett needed to make significant revisions to the framing and argumentation of his thesis.
In mid-March, 1957, as Hugh Everett III was preparing to defend his thesis and graduate, John Wheeler asked him to send preprints of the short thesis and Wheeler's companion article to Bohr and other prominent physicists. In April, H. J. Groenewold of Natuurkundig Laboratorium der Rijks-Universiteit te Groningen, Germany wrote to Everett and Wheeler with his criticism of the revised dissertation. He had previously read the long dissertation sent to Copenhagen. He thought that the preprint was a "much improved" abstract of a (rewritten) longer thesis, although he confessed to not being able to follow many of the arguments. Everett furiously annotated his copy of Groenewold's letter, answering his criticisms point by point and concluding that Groenewold, too, had not thoroughly studied his work.