Abstract
IT has been suggested (I believe by Sommerfeld) that the highest possible atomic number is the constant According to Eddington's theory, this number represents the number of degrees of freedom of a system of two charges. It is natural to suppose that there is a correspondence (direct or indirect) between degrees of freedom and independent wave-functions, so that the maximum number of independent wave-functions for a nucleus and satellite electron is 137. By the exclusion principle each satellite electron must be provided with an independent wave-function, so that there cannot be more than 137 of them.
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NARLIKER, V. The Highest Atomic Number. Nature 129, 402 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129402a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129402a0
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