Edwin Crawford Kemble (January 28, 1889 in Delaware, Ohio – March 12, 1984) was an American physicist who made contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics and molecular structure and spectroscopy.
During World War II, he was a consultant to the Navy on acoustic detection of submarines and to the Army on Operation Alsos.
At Case, Kemble was a student of Dayton C. Miller, a nationally recognized scientist working in the field of acoustics.
While he did want to return to Harvard, a position could not immediately be found, so he spent a half semester teaching at Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts.
Having been instrumental in introducing quantum theory in the United States, he went on to chair the National Research Council's Committee on Radiation in Gasses, which took three years (1923–1926) to prepare the report Molecular Spectra in Gases and served as a coordinating group for national research programs.
Sommerfeld taught many of the leading young scientists then developing quantum mechanics or sorting out atomic and molecular structure from spectroscopic data.
So, it was into this stimulating environment that Kemble went to study and do research with both Sommerfeld in Munich and Born in Göttingen, on a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927-1928.
[4][12] At the end of WW II, Kemble had the opportunity to continue his war-time interest in teaching physics to non-physicists.
Kemble joined I. Bernard Cohen, Gerald Holton, Thomas S. Kuhn, Philippe Le Corbeiller, and Leonard K. Nash in this project.