11 



understood you correctly, the charge is passed along the bonds until you sort of 

 get to the outside, to the periphery, and in that condition these two things that 

 you mentioned can occur. 



POLLARD: Actually what I want to do is to make Augenstine's third 

 point, and that is that some place a new bond must be capable of formation. 

 This molecule isn't inactivated until it has gone wrong. If the molecular pattern 

 is undisturbed, it will recover within 10"° seconds. But if something has been 

 broken that can form a wrong configuration, that is the thing that inactivates the 

 molecule. 



As I have indicated here, the serious events take place at the periph- 

 ery, but that might not necessarily be the case if you have a helical structure 

 that is bonded in a certain way. The bonding might go inside and instead of the 

 helix holding it in place, you would have r momentary deformation of the helix 

 that stays there. So that the site where wrong bonding occurs is the place where 

 radiation action is finally manifest. The other concept I have is the free travel 

 of this type of energy -- you can think of it either as a broken bond, as surplus 

 charge, or lack of charge -- free travel up and down. 



BARRON: The theory of the electron traveling through the protein 

 structure was formulated by Schmidt in an article published 3 years ago, and 

 since then Franck and Livingston (9) have said that no such thing exists. 



PLATZMAN: The discussion by Franck and Livingston has nothing to 

 do with what Dr. Pollard is proposing. It was specifically restricted to the con- 

 sequences of electronic excitation -- e.g. , by light absorption, and was not con- 

 cerned with consequences of ionization by ionizing radiation. 



POLLARD: I am not speaking of an electron traveling and I am not 

 speaking of a proton of a nucleus traveling. I am speaking of the location where 

 there is positive electricity. 



BARRON: Do you mean then, that it is thB amino group, because you 

 have a protein that is in essence, a polymerization of amino acids? 



POLLARD: I think I have something much more fundamental than that, 

 Dr. Barron. I will point it out this way: Suppose I have three nuclei as those 

 diagramed in Figure 2 a, b. They have electrons around them and they have a 

 valence electron that is also shown. This is the P state kind of valence electron. 



If I take away the electron from atom A, it 

 becomes positively charged, but why will 

 it not be quite possible for a P state 

 electron to move from atom B to atom A 

 in which case B becomes positively 

 charged, and then later moves to C , in 

 which case C becomes positively 

 charged? Why does the positive have to 

 remain at the atom that has lost the 

 electron? 



There is a strong interaction be- 

 tween all these atoms, and there is no 

 reason why an atom should not capture 

 a P state electron from its neighbor. 

 When it does so, the neighbor becomes 

 plus, and so on down the line. I feel that 



(a) 



Figure 2. Transfer of electrons be- 

 tween neighboring atoms. 



