Guggenheim Fellowship, Half 1930, Half 1932

Abstract

In September 1929 there was a notable meeting of the Faraday Society in Bristol, England to discuss molecular spectra and molecular structure. I did not attend but sent a paper. Also, following the lead of the atomic spectroscopists, who had just agreed on a standard notation, I had been circulating some proposals for a standard diatomic band spectrum notation; O.W. Richardson, who had been doing a great deal of work with the H₂ spectrum, presented these at the meeting. After some further correspondence, I published a report on diatomic notation, in Physical Review 36, 611 (1930). This was based on a rather nearly unanimous agreement which I had obtained from my fellow-workers on band spectra, perhaps most of whom I had met on my trips to Europe in 1925 and 1927. As already mentioned above, some of us were already discussing the question at Ann Arbor in the summer of 1928. Such an agreement is important, since in a new subject it is much easier for people to understand one another if they use the same names or symbols for the same things. It was at the Bristol meeting that Lennard-Jones presented his paper on the use of the LCAO method for diatomic molecules. Among others who presented papers were C.P. Snow (Cambridge), Herzberg (Bristol) about whom more later, and Kondratiev (Leningrad).