ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

TEMPE, ARIZONA 85281

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY May 3, 1976

Mr. Kenneth Snelson

140 Sullivan St.

New York, New York 10012

Dear Mr. Snelson:

Your sculpture is certainly original and interesting, and no doubt it reflects the nature of the sculptor. I was glad to see the booklet with illustrations of your many creations.

The only honest statement I can make about your atomic model is that I do not feel competent to judge. One would really-need to be an atomic physicist, which I am not, to be able to comment wisely concerning the degree to which your model portrays reality. I find it very interesting and provocative, and I am sure that as an artistic expression about what you think of atoms, it is probably excellent.

Frequently I use atomic imodels of my own creation, in my teaching. When so doing, I try to explain carefully to my students that one might imagine two kinds of model. One would attemspt to duplicate reality exactly except for size, making the latter more convenient or more easily visualized or stored or studied. The quality of such a model would be judged by the faithfulness with which it duplicates the essential features of the original. The other kind of model would attempt to provide a visualizable physical construction that would represent accurately the important qualities of the original but without trying to duplicate it in other details. I point out to them that the first type would be wholly ippractical for an atom, because if the nucleus were made reasonably visible throughout the classroom, the electrons would be required to be of the same size roughly, but perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. Furthermore, the electron of a hydrogen atom would be required to move around the nucleus about 6 million times in one billionth of a second. Consequently I find the second kind of model more practical and useful, in which a styrofoam sphere shows the correct relative size of the atom, outer affixed smaller spheres show the outermost shell distribution of electrons and vacancies in three-dimensional space, and the color represents the relative attraction for electrons, called electronegativity. Given two such atoms, students can make reasonable predictions of the formula of their compound, the geometric arrangement, the possible availability of additional vacant orbitals or electron pairs, and the approximate polarity of the bonds. With a somewhat more sophisticated approach, they can easily learn to calculate quantitatively the strength of the chemical bonds and thus to understand why those bonds formed in preference to other alternatives. They can also make reasonable predictions of the physical state of the compound and its general physical and chemical nature.

I am not altogether sure what your intention is for your atomic model. I have a feeling you would like it to reveal hidden truths about atomic structure that will make it easier to understand the behavior of each atom. I do not find your model very practical in this application. So although I applaud it as an artistic representation, suggesting the artist's own concept of the nature of an atom, and although it may well appeal to atomic physicists as providing special insights, it does not, I suppose, really satisfy my own peculiar preconceptions about what an atom must be like. I would like to encourage your continuing interest, however, and especially after consultation with someone more knowledgeable than I. The artificial boundaries man use to sort out his knowledge ought to be ignored wherever possible.

Sincerely,

(signed) R.T. Sanderson