Abstract
IN the advance proofs of the International Conference on Physics, held in London and Cambridge in October 1934, and in other recent publications, the Italian authors write the mass-number and atomic number of the element on the right ; for example, He24, Cl1735; the English authors write them diagonally, for example, 2He4, 17Cl35, and the French authors on the left, thus, 24He, 1735Cl. When dealing with molecules it is essential to leave a space on the right in which to indicate the number of atoms as in the English formulæ, H2O, Cl2, or the French formulæ, H2O, Cl2, etc. The Italian scheme blocks both positions and cannot be used by chemists ; the English scheme cannot be used by French chemists, whereas the French scheme is convenient for all nationalities and might with advantage be adopted internationally. It has the incidental advantage that, when the numbers are printed vertically above one another, and are not staggered as in the Italian scheme, it is particularly easy to see by subtraction the number of neutrons in the nucleus.
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LOWRY, T. Formulæ and Equations in Nuclear Chemistry. Nature 135, 36 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135036c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135036c0
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