Shelter Island Conference Plaque

APS Commemorates Shelter Island Conference

On June 4, as part of the APS historic sites initiative, Editor-in-Chief Gene Sprouse presented a plaque to the owners of the Ram's Head Inn on Shelter Island, to commemorate the celebrated conference that took place there 63 years earlier. The plaque reads: “At this site a small meeting of theoretical physicists took place June 2-4, 1947. In a burst of pent up creativity after the war, they attacked several of the most important problems of the time, which led to dramatic breakthroughs in fundamental areas of quantum physics.” The conference was attended by many of the post-war luminaries in US physics, and was notable for advances made in the understanding of quantum electrodynamics. It was held on Shelter Island, a secluded spot between the two forks of eastern Long Island. In the picture, Ram's Head Inn proprietor Linda Eklund (left) accepts the plaque from Sprouse (right) while the Chair of the APS Historic Sites Committee, Ben Bederson (center) looks on.
  Shelter Island Conference