Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON. Royal Society, Jan. 20.—J. Topping and S. Chapman: On the form and energy of crystalline sodium nitrate. The total potential energy has been found for a series of configurations of the ions of the crystal, by the addition of the potential energy due to the intrinsic repulsive forces between the various ions, to the electrostatic potential energy, which was calculated in a previous paper. The stable configurations of the crystal corresponding to a minimum value of this energy has been found for various values of the distance b between the N and O ions of an NO₃ group. The value of b suggested is about 0.96 Å.U., which is somewhat larger than the value of 0.72 A.U. given in the former paper.