Session Y06: The Chapel Hill Conference and its Role in the Renaissance of General Relativity

How Felix Pirani launched the effort to detect gravitational waves

Felix Pirani's talk at the Chapel Hill Conference launched the effort to detect gravitational waves. Joe Weber was in the audience, and began his lifelong quest immediately after the conference. Rai Weiss read the paper on which Pirani's talk was based, and cited it as inspiration for his own proposal for what became LIGO. The talk will summarize the evidence (from the Conference Proceedings and from other sources) that supports these claims.   

Chapel Hill, Wheeler, and I

The chain of fortunate circumstances that allowed me to take part in the Chapel Hill conference can be traced back at least to 1943. Wheeler wanted to understand elementary particles, which included gravitation via action-at-a-distance. His "liaison" ideas were discussed with Einstein and later with Bohr. In the 1950's followed a gradual change to find particle-like structures in Einstein's original theory: Daring Conservatism. These bold ideas fascinated a large number of students, me among them. Challenging projects were found in Wheeler's lectures and assignments. A motivation was to be part of the grand first presentation of Daring Conservatism at Chapel Hill. Indeed Wheeler prominently presented his school by 11 "informal abstracts" that were circulated before the conference. These add a few sidelights to the already so well-documented proceedings of this conference. \\ \\In collaboration with: Alexander Blum, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin Germany   

Behind the Scenes at Chapel Hill

The 1957 Conference on the Role of Gravitation in Physics (aka The Chapel Hill conference) marked a turning point in the fortunes of general relativity. This talk will examine a range of interesting details in the the setting up of the conference: motivations, participant selection, political factors, funding, and more.   

US Air Force Support of General Relativity: Chapel Hill and Beyond

In 1956, the US Air Force began an in-house program that included external support for gravitational physics. The 1957 Chapel Hill Conference was the first external conference supported. This program continued until 1972. The Air Force contribution to the Conference and the development of a strong in-house effort will be described.