Abstract
THE question which Prof. Partington raises in his letter under the above title in NATURE of April 7, p. 172, is an important one which I would prefer should be answered by others more qualified to do so than myself. I intervene principally to correct the impression given in the letter that the structures of the various molecules with which I have dealt in recent communications have been proposed by me. This is not so. All that I have done is to show that the structures of certain polyatomic molecules, including some halogen gases, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide, postulated by Lewis and Langmuir are consistent with viscosity data and X-ray crystal data taken together. The procedure deals with the external shapes of the molecules only, and not with the internal energy of their nuclei; and it appears to be justified by the calculations of Prof. S. Chapman (Phil. Trans., vol. ccxvi., p. 347), who says: "the internal energy which prevents the application of our formulæ to the conductivity of polyatomic gases hardly affects viscosity".
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RANKINE, A. Molecular Structure and Energy. Nature 107, 203 (1921). https://doi.org/10.1038/107203b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/107203b0
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