Aage Petersen

Danish-American physicist who served as Niels Bohr's scientific assistant from 1952 until Bohr's death in 1962, afterward working at Yeshiva University's Belfer Graduate School of Science (per a biographical page hosted at web.mit.edu, Tier 3-4, consistent with but not itself proof of the account below). In the vault he surfaces as the uncredited originator behind claim-aharonov-quantum-frames-of-reference-work-predated-1973-1984-publication-by-decade: per Yakir Aharonov's own 2026 recollection, the two worked out the core idea of quantum frames of reference together at Brandeis in the mid-1960s, while "working on" modular variables — but Petersen never published that work himself; Aharonov only lectured on it, and the first publication was with Gideon Carmi (1973/74), with Aharonov's PhD student Tirzah Kaufherr's 1984 paper tracing back to the same unpublished root. The pair reportedly collaborated again later, on "modular momentum," with Hugh Pendleton at Yeshiva — a separate thread the source interview does not fully disambiguate in time or place from the Brandeis-era frames-of-reference discussions.

References

• claim-aharonov-quantum-frames-of-reference-work-predated-1973-1984-publication-by-decade
• claim-kaufherr-1981-phd-thesis-predates-1984-journal-paper-by-three-years