Abstract
THE joint discussion on the “Constitution of Molecules” by Sections A and B of the British Association aroused great interest, and the audience, which filled the large meeting room to its utmost capacity, included many visitors from other sections. Dr. Irving Langmuir introduced the subject with a clear and attractive presentation of the theory which is associated with his name and With that of Prof. G. N. Lewis. As originally published, this theory depended on a rather large number of arbitrary assumptions, but it has since been greatly simplified, and now involves only the three postulates described in NATURE of September 15, p. 101. The first of these postulates, according to which the electrons arrange themselves in the atom in definite layers of 2, 8, 8, 18, 18 and 32, is sometimes in conflict with the third, which requires that the residual charge on each atom and group of atoms should tend to become a minimum, and by giving greater weight to one or to the other it is possible to bring the majority of compounds within the scheme. This possibility, whilst making it easy to find an explanation for a variety of facts, is an obstacle to the establishment of the theory on a firm physical basis. However, Dr. Langmuir is engaged on the quantitative examination of the consequences of the suggested distribution of electrons, and the progress made since the original publication in 1919 is so great that a still closer approximation to chemical facts may be expected with some confidence. One theoretical prediction, that of the salt-like character of lithium hydride, was mentioned as having been confirmed by experiment, and this confirmation is of some importance.
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The Constitution of Molecules. Nature 108, 218–220 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/108218a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/108218a0