13 April 1954
Dr. H. W. Sternberg
Synthetic Fuels Research Branch
Bureau of Mines
Bruceton, Pa.
Dear Dr. Sternberg:
I have read with interest your paper with your collaborators, in the last issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and I am writing to ask if you have made arrangements to have your compounds investigated by x-ray diffraction and electron diffraction. If not, perhaps we could do this work.
I think that the compound dicobalt hexacarbonyl acetylene, which boils at about 65° with 4 millimeters pressure, would be well suited to an electron-diffraction study of the gas molecules, and also that it would be worth while to check up on the structure of the compound with diphenyl acetylene by x-ray diffraction.
Please let me know if you would be interested in having this structural work done, and if you could supply us with the materials.
Sincerely yours,
Linus Pauling:W
April
13, 1954
