On social and psychological aspects of a negligible reception of Natanson’s article of 1911 in the early history of quantum statistics

Abstract

Possible reasons are studied why Ladislas (Władysław) Natanson’s paper on the statistical theory of radiation, published in 1911 both in English and in the German translation, was not cited properly in the early history of quantum statistics by outstanding scientists, such as Arnold Sommerfeld, Paul Ehrenfest, Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein. The social and psychological aspects are discussed as background to many so far discussions on the academic evaluation of his theory. In order to avoid in the future such Natansonian cases of very limited reception of valuable scientific works, it is proposed to introduce a digital tag in which all the information of relevant papers published so far should be automatically accumulated and updated.