George Eugene Uhlenbeck

George Eugene Uhlenbeck was an Indonesian-born Dutch physicist whose discovery of electron spin with Samuel Goudsmit placed him among the young scientists shaping modern physics. In the account of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s early career, he is also a figure of swift personal connection: a brief meeting at Leiden University became an easy friendship that surfaced again in New York.

Identity and Scientific Work

During the academic year Oppenheimer spent at Göttingen, Uhlenbeck belonged to an exceptional gathering of physicists. He and Samuel Goudsmit had discovered the concept of electron spin in late 1925, a contribution that distinguished the two young scientists amid the rapid development of quantum theory. The narrative presents Uhlenbeck both through this scientific achievement and through the close professional world in which he encountered Oppenheimer.

Meeting Oppenheimer

Uhlenbeck had met Oppenheimer the previous spring, during Oppenheimer’s weeklong visit to Leiden University. Their rapport was immediate. Recalling the meeting, Uhlenbeck said, “We got along very well immediately,” and described their intense shared engagement with physics as making them seem “as if we were old friends.” The recollection gives their connection an unusually direct origin: not a long apprenticeship or formal alliance, but an instant affinity grounded in their common preoccupation with the subject.

Reunion in New York

At the end of the summer, Uhlenbeck returned to New York with Goudsmit, Goudsmit’s fellow electron-spin discoverer, and with his new wife, Else. They accompanied Charlotte Riefenstahl, who had accepted a teaching post at Vassar College. Oppenheimer, already acquainted with Uhlenbeck and Goudsmit as accomplished physicists, met the party at the harbor and hosted them lavishly. Their reunion shows the continuity between the scientific community Oppenheimer had encountered in Europe and the personal world he maintained after returning to the United States.