Details
SODDY, Frederick. Autograph letter signed ("Frederick Soddy") to Bernhard Vesper, Jr., Oxford, 21 March 1926. 2 pages, 8o, with original envelope .
Fascinating letter discussing some aspects of atomic theory in light of recent developments. Soddy was co-author with Rutherford of the disintegration theory of radioactivity (1901-3), and collaborated with Ramsay in demonstrating the production of helium from radium (1903). His investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes (1910-19), for which he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in chemistry, paralleled Bohr's physical investigations in providing crucial evidence for the nuclear origins of alpha- and beta-decay. Soddy's letter mentions Niels Bohr's revolutionary work on atomic structure and radiation, for which he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922; it also refers to Irving Langmuir (1881-1957), who awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1932 for his discoveries and inventions in the field of surface chemistry. "I regard Langmuir's theory as having a value in giving some concrete idea of the nature of chemical combination, but I do not suppose that he himself would regard it as more than that, or than that the cubic orientation of the electron is some resultant effect of their orbital motions. However that may be I so regard it-that the electrons are in orbital motion but that the total result is to simulate a static condition with cubic orientation. Bohr's theory is quite useless as yet in most of the fields in which chemists are interested-explaining the architecture of the solid state, engineering qualities of matter & so on-& is confined to theoretical spectroscopy." We have not been able to identify Soddy's correspondent. DSB. James, Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, pp. 134-140.
Fascinating letter discussing some aspects of atomic theory in light of recent developments. Soddy was co-author with Rutherford of the disintegration theory of radioactivity (1901-3), and collaborated with Ramsay in demonstrating the production of helium from radium (1903). His investigations into the origin and nature of isotopes (1910-19), for which he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in chemistry, paralleled Bohr's physical investigations in providing crucial evidence for the nuclear origins of alpha- and beta-decay. Soddy's letter mentions Niels Bohr's revolutionary work on atomic structure and radiation, for which he received the Nobel Prize for physics in 1922; it also refers to Irving Langmuir (1881-1957), who awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1932 for his discoveries and inventions in the field of surface chemistry. "I regard Langmuir's theory as having a value in giving some concrete idea of the nature of chemical combination, but I do not suppose that he himself would regard it as more than that, or than that the cubic orientation of the electron is some resultant effect of their orbital motions. However that may be I so regard it-that the electrons are in orbital motion but that the total result is to simulate a static condition with cubic orientation. Bohr's theory is quite useless as yet in most of the fields in which chemists are interested-explaining the architecture of the solid state, engineering qualities of matter & so on-& is confined to theoretical spectroscopy." We have not been able to identify Soddy's correspondent. DSB. James, Nobel Laureates in Chemistry, pp. 134-140.