PHILIP STAPP 54 EAST 81st STREET NEW YORK CITY 28 REGENT 4-4678

September 7 1966

Dear Ken: I read your article in INDUSTRIAL DESIGN with considerable pleasure and admiration. I know very little about the structure of the atom, but have enough familiarity with the historic evolution of various models to guess that your concept is original, daring and marvelously elegant. At least so it seems to me in my not uncomfortable ignorance.

One thing which may amuse you: the group who came to visit you, said, in effect, that " ....although you are a charming man ....and have a wonderful grasp of space ....and your sculptures are handsome...etc, ete, etc.... your model of the atom is WRONG..."

I felt there was a certain unnecessary emotional charge in this pronouncement which made me wonder whether they were so certain as they wanted to be. I even twitted Alan Holden on it a bit, later, saying that anyway I found them extremely beautiful. "But just because they are beautiful doesn’t make them RIGHT" he said, with some heat. (Nuts to you, Mr. Keats, I thought.) They think, I gather, that you have to justify your theories mathematically in order to prove them more valid (or useful) than the current theories.

You seem to have more physics under your belt than any of the designers at the Seattle or Stonybrook conferences. I was tempted to note in my comments after this summer the-b if there is to be a marriage of art and science one had better be sure it was not just a "marriage de convenance"...or words to that effect.

Please let me see you, Ken.

(signed) Philip