A Calculation of the Atomic Weights of Isotopes

Abstract

SOME months ago, when engaged on a study of radioactive disintegration series, the results of which appeared in the October issue of the Philosophical Magazine, I was able to formulate simple rules from radioactive data which enabled me to calculate a list of the atomic weights of the principal isotopes of both common and radioactive elements. This list, which will be published in due course, agreed closely, although not identically, with all the experimental values of the atomic weights of the isotopes of the common elements determined up to that date (June 1923) by Aston and others. Since then, in a recent issue of NATURE (September 22, p. 449), Aston has published some further results with which my predictions agree so exactly that I feel constrained to give here a brief account of how my list was arrived at, and to state some results which have yet to be verified or disproved experimentally.