The collective character of the formulation of quantum physics also met a great variety of discussions, interpretations and reactions from other scientists, amateurs and more or less educated audiences of the press. For this reason two research endeavors are investigating the controversial public reaction to quantum theory and modern physics in general. As part of a wider research project based at the Deutsches Museum on science communication and the changing relation between science and public in the 20th century, the first project focuses on the role of the public in shaping the concepts, notions and models in quantum physics. Two particular examples were the establishing of drawings and models of the Bohr atom, the reluctance of the physicists towards them, the negotiation process in popular science journals and the problem to adjust this model after quantum mechanics gave rise to major revisions. Particularly influential for the reception of modern physics in the
Weimar period were people from the border region of science, i. e. academic scientists outside the mainstream and non-academic, self-proclaimed researchers who publicly opposed the theory of relativity as well as the new quantum physics. The second endeavor, a recently accomplished dissertation, focused on this opposition phenomenon particularly in the 1920s. On the basis of a broad range of source material a hitherto unknown international network of academic and non-academic opponents, in particular to the theory of relativity, was constructed and explained as a reaction to a marginalization process that accompanied the success of modern theoretical physics in science and the public sphere.