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Name for the Positive Nucleus

Abstract

MAY I ask in what way “the hydrogen nucleus or unit of positive charge,” for which Sir Oliver Lodge (NATURE, December 9, p. 467) provides us with a choice of brand-new names, “proton, ambron, merron, uron, prime, centron, and hylon,” differs from our very old friend “hydrion,” the familiar hydrogen ion of the physical chemist? The point occurred to me when Sir Ernest Rutherford suggested the new name “proton” for it in Section A of the British Association this year. Its new hypothetical rôle as “the brick of which all atoms ale built up, electrons acting as cement,” although probably more acceptable to chemists than the curious inversion of this which afforded to a past generation of physicists such peculiar æsthetic and intellectual gratification, ought not to be allowed to obscure the fact that there is nothing hypothetical or protonic about the particle itself. In 1920 hydrogen ion, as the common constituent of that verv common class of substances called acids by the chemist, surely does not need a choice of seven brand-new names. In fact, one Faraday did some very important work indeed in the subject generations before the modern hydrophobic school, with its inveterate aversion to “anything wet,” had arisen.

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SODDY, F. Name for the Positive Nucleus. Nature 106, 502–503 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106502b0

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