Harrison McAllister Randall (December 17, 1870 – November 10, 1969) was an American physicist whose leadership from 1915 to 1941 brought the University of Michigan to international prominence in experimental and theoretical physics.
[1] In 1910 Randall moved abroad to work under Professor Friedrich Paschen at the University of Tübingen—55 years before Tübingen and Ann Arbor would become sister cities.
Quantum mechanics did not yet exist as a field, and the study of atomic spectra was largely ad hoc experimentation with very little theoretical underpinning.
But Randall came home from his 1910 sabbatical at Tübingen with new ideas (as well as some new equipment Paschen had helped him develop), and went on to lead a radical overhaul of physics research at Michigan.
Subsequently, the University of Michigan added Otto Laporte, Samuel Goudsmit, George Uhlenbeck and David Dennison to the physics faculty.
Colby and Randall also started the Michigan Summer Symposia in Theoretical Physics, an annual, multi-week gathering that occurred from 1927 to 1941.
This conference provided short courses from prominent theorists, including Bohr, Dirac, Fermi, Heisenberg, Pauli and others, to audiences that sometimes exceeded 100.
[5] In interviews, Randall displayed a complex mix of humility—often downplaying his own substantial accomplishments—and bitterness over what he felt were his ideas stolen by other researchers, particularly his students who went on to publish more prominently than he ever did.