707 Sheridan Rd.

Evanston, Ill.

4 April 1963

Industrial Design

New York

It is hard to tell you of the various degrees of pleasure in, provocation by and resultant discussion on Kenneth Snelson’s “A Design for the Atom”, February ID.

Amongst a group of scientists in the research center where I while away my day for pay there has been a cautious praise, equally cautious stiffness against the idea plus an interesting side reaction.

This was that right or wrong, theoretically useful or not, Mr. Snelson produced his models in rings or in magnets to delight the eye and brain. It was suggested that by itself here was a class of design element or prototype for non-physicists, just for the beauty of its appearance. We all hoped it would be junk, the customary and untrue old Bohr-atom picture used in advertising anything from electronics to paints (I mean the orbits-about-a-nucleus cliché).

How is it that this article was in ID and not in a physics periodical?

Temple Nieter

P.S. Did designers scare away from it or object?