Wheeler, John. “On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure”, Physical Review; Volume 52 No. 11, pp. 1107-1122 in the issue of pp 1079-1200. Offered in the original wrappers, a good fresh, crisp copy. The detraction here is some wear along the spine, which obscures much of the word “Review”; there’s also two small chips missing from the spine top and bottom. VG copy. $250

“In a 1937 paper “On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure”, Wheeler introduced the S-matrix – short for scattering matrix – “a unitary matrix of coefficients connecting the asymptotic behavior of an arbitrary particular solution [of the integral equations] with that of solutions of a standard form.” Werner Heisenberg subsequently developed the idea of the S-matrix in the 1940s. Due to the problematic divergences present in quantum field theory at that time, Heisenberg was motivated to isolate the essential features of the theory that would not be affected by future changes as the theory developed. In doing so he was led to introduce a unitary “characteristic” S-matrix, which became an important tool in particle physics.”–Wikipedia entry on Wheeler. 

(I just wanted to point out here that only seven years passed between the time that Wheeler graduated from high school and receiving his Ph.D., in 1933, at age 22. He published his first scientific paper in 1930, at age 19. Two years after this 1937 paper was published, Wheeler wrote a paper with Niels Bohr explaining the mechanism of nuclear fission (on the day that Germany invaded Poland).