104 WHAT IS LIFE 



How the models of the atoms of the electronegative 

 elements oxygen and nitrogen are to be pictured, is 

 not known. Sommerfeld says that at any rate it 

 must be assumed that they are characterized by a 

 certain lack of symmetry in certain of the paths of 

 some of their orbital electrons. 



Hydrogen is an electropositive element. In the 

 hydrogen atom we have one unit each of the two 

 fundamental building blocks, the two ultimate known 

 constituents and building blocks of all things. (More 

 than a hundred years ago Prout advanced the hy- 

 pothesis that hydrogen itself was the unit of which 

 all other atoms are multiples.) 



Many believe that electrons, positive and negative 

 electrons, indeed are the two ultimate units. How- 

 ever, science today makes no dogmatic assertions 

 concerning whether electrons are or are not the ulti- 

 mate constituents of things. Ehrenhaft thought he 

 had evidence for the existence of a unit much 

 smaller than the electron. But his experiments 

 were shown to have been faulty, and thus his 

 reasoning invalid. Recently J. J. Thomson sug- 

 gested that the electrons in the atoms may be 

 surrounded by much smaller particles. But assump- 

 tions of the existence of units smaller than the 

 electron are for the present purely speculative. 

 The electron in its two forms is the smallest unit 



