359 
1921-22.] Sir Alfred Ewing’s Magnetic Atom. 
nucleus, and that as they approach each other they each swing through 
approximately 90^ to take up their new position under their mutual 
polar attractions. This will involve, just as in the case of our magnets, 
of the doing of a certain amount of work on each electron until it has 
swung to its angle of instability, when it will then rotate into its new 
position with vibration and dissipation of energy as radiation or heat. 
Evidently these electrons in their new position are no longer magneti- 
cally held by their respective atoms, but they are still held electrostatically 
to the nucleus, and therefore we have the two atoms bound together by 
the electrostatic attraction of each electron for its own nucleus, and by 
the magnetic attraction between them. 
Fig. 6. 
All this, therefore, is in harmony with the conclusions as to the 
construction of the atom come to by Mr Langmuir, but to his description 
a dynamic explanation of chemical combination has been added, the 
application of the Ewing effect showing how a definite amount of work 
would be done and a definite amount of heat produced. 
We must next consider whether the two electrons will remain in this 
position or will swing together on a common axis so as to lie again in a 
radial plane. Now if we assume the electrons to be placed into the shells 
of both atoms with their north poles facing the same way, it is evident that 
the poles of the electrons of two atoms approaching each other would be 
related, as shown in fig. 7, and that consequently^ if the two external 
electrons, after swinging into the tangential plane, begin to swing together 
on a common centre in either direction, they will be repelled by the 
magnetic poles on one atom or on the other, as the case may be, and 
