CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

PASADENA

NORMAN BRIDGE LABORATORY OF PHYSICS May 3, 1963

Mr. Kenneth Snelson

Snelson Structures

148 Spring Street

New York 12, New York

Dear Mr. Sne1son:

By all means continue to make your structures and models -- they are beautiful.

They do not, I believe, have anything to do with real atoms, however. They are not science, but art. Your history in the article in Industrial Design stops around 1926, which is too soon. The problems you mention under " electronic dilemma" are all solved. The interaction between various electrons must be, and is, taken into account today. Only then does the result of present theory agree in detail with experiment,

In order to make your art science you must subject your ideas to a critical and detached check against observation. For example, exactly how much energy will it take to remove one electron from the normal He atom in order to make a He ion?

Or again, you say "additional energy would be required to confine the electron ... as seen in the fine structure of spectral lines." How much energy, which lines, are affected, and by how much, etc., etc..

The scientists' problem is not lack of imagination -- ideas like yours come a dime a dozen. The problem is to get rid of them as quickly as possible and try to find one which fits as accurately in detail with as much as possible. We find we must think of things so off-beat to understand nature that spheres and rings are grossly insufficient -- although they are fun to look at.

Sincerely,

(signed) R. P. Feynman

RPF: n