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