January 20, 1936

Professor E. D. Eastman

Gilman Hall

University of California

Berkeley, California

Dear Ermon:

I have just received our manuscript from Urey together with a letter from him and a letter from Rodebush. I am sending all of the stuff to you to look over and decide what ought to be done and what you think the situation really is. It is a little hard for me to believe that the things that Rodebush said is his paper come so close to being identical with the things we said in ours as Rodebush says they do. On the other hand we should, of course, allow him the benefit of any doubt that there is. Possibly we should rewrite the introduction to say that Rodebush has recently discussed interpretations of the third law of thermo- dynamics in terms of the new quantum mechanics, and that we are presenting another discussion of essentially the same subject in order to clear up some questions which arose regarding the matter, with Rodebush agreeing with what we say. Probably a still better thing to do would be for you to include as much of this stuff as you want in your Chemical Reviews paper with a footnote saying that Rodebush agrees with your interpretation of the question and a statement, I suppose, that you are indebted to me for discussing it with you. In view of what Rodebush says, to wit, that he does agree with what we say and that there is no conflict between us, this latter procedure seems to me to be the desirable one.

Helen has returned from Oregon; in fact, she got back two days before Christmas. Her mother is feeling much better now and I hope that she will continue to improve. It is possible, however, that we may have to drive to Oregon during our spring vacation towards the end of March, in which ease we shall probably be too rushed to stop at Berkeley. I hope that the new semester is starting out well.

Yours,

Linus Pauling

LP:mrl