20 LATROBE HALL April 14, 1976 EN 6-3300

Mr. Kenneth Snelson

140 Sullivan Street

New York, N. Y. 10012

Dear Mr. Snelson:

Your "Portrait of an Atom" arrived along with the photographs of some of your sculptures (structures). I have read the "Portrait" and find it interesting, but I don't quite know how to comment on the atom as a portrait! Let me add, however, that I strongly endorse and favor your attempts to picture the atom in some way; modern art and literature need to come to grips with the increased knowledge provided by science and with the influences of technology on man

Atomic models (or pictures) are useful as guides to calculations or predictions of certain types of behavior, but it is probably a bad idea for a working scientist to cling to any particular picture of an atom. Like the captain in the movie "A Captain's Paradise", we should be able to flip from one picture to another as convenience dictates The late Professor Berlin of Hopkins (and Rockefeller University) when once asked what he pictured in his mind at the mention of the word "electron" replied that it had taken him twenty years, but he had finally trained himself to think of nothing in particular when he heard that word!

Your "rings" or slices of charge clouds (or particle wave orbits) amount to most probable locations for electrons in circular orbits with axes oriented in some regular fashion. These "portraits" do not appear to be in contradiction to the principal chemical or crystallographical properties of atoms and thus should be acceptable on technical grounds.

All of this is probably not very helpful, but I have contacted some of my colleagues (in Physics, Metallurgy, and Biophysics) who would be willing to talk to you about their attempts to understand or "picture" atomic particles, atomic arrangements in crystals, and biological molecules. Thus if you choose to spend a day or two at Hopkins you would get a chance to "look over the shoulders" of some of the people who are "looking" at atoms and atomic particles by various methods. Our semester classes end May 15th so that a relatively free time for us will occur during the last week in May or early June if you would like to arrange a visit. There is good train service between New York and Baltimore and the train station is not far from our Homewood campus.

Sincerely yours,

(signed) Edwin R. Fitzgerald

ERF/ jm

P.S. I assume that you are familiar with electron microscope results, including the field-emission work of Prof. Erwin Mueller at Penn State.

cc. Prof. A. Pevsner, R. B. Pond, J. W. Wiggins