16 



as sucl 



You will notice that I am not speaking about anything actually moving 

 da ouoh. No one electron travels. It is just the transfer of the electron from 

 one atom to another that takes place. Just as we might say this is true for the 

 rather easy case of the positive part of ionization, it would be equally true if an 

 electron had decided, for example, to stop in a certain atom. Then we would 

 now have a carbon nucleus with a nitrogen structure, and this in turn could then 

 begin to move. 



10"^^ seconds? 



CURTIS: May I ask a question at this point. This event happens in 

 :onds? 



POLLARD: That is the transfer of positive charge from one atom to 



the other. 



CURTIS: And this time presumably is not time enough for anything 

 very radical to happen as far as the bond there is concerned. The charge can 

 travel back and forth until, as you mentioned this morning, it gets to the sur- 

 face, in which case something may happen. Have you considered the possibility 

 of two such traveling charges arriving at a bond simultaneously? 



POLLARD: Yes. We have been kicking an alternative theory around. 

 For instance, if you have a second ionization and both travel around, some bond 

 may be broken when the two happen, by chance, to come together. It is a very 

 attractive idea and might be all right. 



PLATZMAN: What are the entities that are supposed to come 

 together? 



POLLARD: Suppose, for instance, that one atom broke off. It might 

 weaken the bond of the nearby residue for a moment just as it went by, and if it 

 weakened it at the right place at the same time the first was weak, you might 

 actually get these two just simply breaking off together. 



PLATZMAN: The two positive regions would repel each other and the 

 tendency would be for them to keep apart and not to come together. 



POLLARD: Well, we are thinking of the two bonds being broken so 

 that there is a momentary chance for a new chemical configuration to form. 



PLATZMAN: Yes, but the possibility of forming a new configuration 

 would not help to induce the two initial episodes. They would have to be inde- 

 pendent and coincident. 



POLLARD: The coincidence might aid it. 



BENNETT: What you want your event to do is to occur at a special 

 place, and if these two things are going along together, it seems to me rather 

 unlikely that that would hit at a special place, which is one of the earlier re- 

 quirements that you set up. 



ZIRKLE: It would require a double ionization, wouldn't it? Don't 

 your data indicate that 1 does the trick? 



POLLARD: In half the cases, 1 does the trick. In some, however, 3 

 are necessary. In one case, 4. 



ZIRKLE: I am not entirely clear, from your earlier discussion, as to 



