3134 Sheridan Road

Portsmouth, Ohio 45662

January 2, 1978

Dear Kenneth Snelson,

Many thanks for your sending me all the materials that you did. It has helped me to understand much more clearly the approach you are taking.

Your skepticism concerning the uncertainty principle, I fully agree with. An interesting related historical point is that for Heisenberg, the principle did not come out of his theory directly, but out of a contradiction in his theory, i.e., the uncertainty relations were a stop gap themselves to overcome another contradiction, the fact that his matrix mechanics could not account for the path of an electron as perceived in the Wilson cloud chamber.

One thing that greatly impresses me about your work is the possibility it offers as a new physical analogy. What I mean by this is best explained by reference to a book by John Merz on European thought in the 19th century. Merz shows how all physical thought of the 19th century was dominated by a progressive sequence of five analogies which culminated in the energetic analogy. Many of the ambiguous and perverse features of modern quantum mechanics, in my opinion, arise from an inability either to fit the experimental data to any of Merz's analogies. (the older analogies) or to find a new analogy in the same way that the others developed as a response to new experiments which fits them. I think your work offers this possibility.

Of particular significance, I think, is your benzene model, as I have believed for a long while that the explaining away of resonance would be one of the first requirements for a visualizable theory of the atom, although I am still somewhat hazy about how your hydrogens fit on your benzene ring. Sometime I would like to see some of your physical models. I do think this is an important model. Another question: How would this compare with your models of cyclohexane? I know the answers to these questions must seem obvious to you, but please try to bear with me, understanding that yours is an entirely different approach than that taken typically, and it may take me a while to mentally shift gears.

On another point, have you investigated the Lewis-Langmuir model of the atom at all. Between the beginning of the quantum theory and the development of quantum mechanics, the Bohr model was considered the physicist's model of the atom, and the Lewis-Langmuir model was considered the chemist's model. It seems as though some useful analogies might be made from this latter model to help you amplify your own model.

Along this line, is it possible that perhaps you are trying a bit too slavishly to explain the spatial models of quantum mechanics. These spatial orbital models are themselves just attempts made by men to explain the experimental facts, men who no doubt had lesser spatial creativity than yourself. It seems to me that with your extraordinary spatial creativity, it might be more fruitful for you to develop your own spatial models of the various orbitals (or whatever) which fit the experimental data but which may not be in harmony with the models of the quantum mechanists. I think you see this in your “shaved” models of quantum mechanical orbitals which only approximate their probability models, but I think if you went directly to the experiments which led the quantum theorists to postulate their probability distributions, you might develop even more parsimonious spatial configurations. Related to this, Schroedinger rejected the Born interpretation of his wave equation as a probability-wave believing it to be a physical wave.

I believe in what I perceive you are attempting to do; but I must admit that I am somewhat hazy about the relation ship between some of the models and the experimental facts that must be explained by any atomic model. I would like to try to fit your models more directly to experiment, rather than merely analoging them (the models) to contemporary quantum mechanics. I would be interested in working with

you on this, but I feel that I need a more concrete grasp of some of your detailed models. Perhaps we could get together sometime in the spring and, if possible, spend two or three days discussing just these questions of the relation of the models to experiments, and at your studio where I could personally inspect your models. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

John B. Kizer