9 February 1954

Dear Peter:

I am glad to have your last letter, which has arrived. I was sorry when I heard that you had gone to Greece. I would have cabled you except for the fact that you had said in your letters that you were not going to go. Also, I am surprised that you did not check up immediately at the University or the Technical University in Athens -- I had informed them that we were not coming, so that you could have found out what the situation was.

I am sending you under separate cover a book "Physical Chemistry" by McDougall, published in 1943. It is orange in color, and so may be the book that you used, although it does not have your name in it, and as I look through it I do not see any sign that it was ever opened. Perhaps this is the book that you used, but my copy. If this is not right, please let me know.

I am also sending, in another package, the Physical Chemistry written by Walter J. Moore, with some annotations by me. This book may well treat almost all of the subjects that should be handled in a modern course in physical chemistry.

I am not interested in having a hasty opinion from you about topics in these two books, but rather a considered one, if you are interested enough to give it. I think that it would be wise for you, if you want to go into this matter, to go through each of the two books section by section and write down briefly your opinion of each section. Perhaps a better way would be to check the topics that occur in one book or the other or both, making an outline of these topics and under each topic a statement about the nature of the treatment given in each book, the desirability of discussing the topic in the course in physical chemistry, and recommendations as to how the topic could best be handled.

One simple question that I want the answer to is how much you learned about, for example, each of the seventeen chapters in Moore's book when you took your course in physical chemistry. Also, how much do you think it would have been wise for you to have learned -- should the topics of these chapters be included in the course?

Probably it would be wise for you not to embark on a program that requires say 150 hours of work until it seems worth while to do so. You might carry out a preliminary survey, in, say, 50 hours, and then we could decide whether to go further or not.

What I have in mind is the possibility of writing a textbook of physical chemistry. If you were interested, you and I might write it together. I don't think that it would be worth while to attempt this joint work, however, unless you were interested. You probably cannot decide now, but should be able to decide after some preliminary work.

At the present time there is, I think, no really satisfactory modern textbook of physical chemistry for undergraduates; Walter Moore's books comes closer to being satisfactory than any other, in my opinion, but I think that it could be improved on. In some respects it is, I think, too advanced for the first course in physical chemistry.

There is an interesting situation in physical chemistry. When I heard the figures last, about three years ago, approximately 80 percent of the schools were using the Daniels-Gettman text. I don't know how many students of physical chemistry there are in the country, but a reasonably good textbook of physical chemistry might sell 2000 copies per year or 2500.

I have not wanted to get involved in writing a textbook of physical chemistry, including chemical thermodynamics, because it is a nuisance to decide how best to present chemical thermodynamics. There are, however, several good books on chemical thermodynamics available now, and, moreover, I think that perhaps physical chemistry should place more emphasis on statistical mechanics than at present, with only a small amount of chemical thermodynamics, which would then be taught more thoroughly in a separate course. Accordingly I have in mind the possibility of writing a textbook on physical chemistry with only the minimum of chemical thermodynamics in it.

I think that I asked you in my earlier letter how much statistical mechanics you know. If you have a chance to attend lectures on statistical mechanics, it might be worth while for you to do so, and to work enough problems to get a good understanding of the subject. I think that it is a most valuable part of modern theoretical science. I have in mind giving a very brief basic discussion of the subject, including the Boltzmann principle, and then some applications, such as the theory of dielectric constant due to dipoles, the Einstein theory and the Debye theory of the heat capacity of solids, and so on.

I have just worked out a set of atomic coordinates for my collagen structure. It is a structure that I discovered about a year ago. I don't think that it has any unsatisfactory features, but it has not yet been subjected to very extensive experimental test.

Aunt Beth is in the hospital, and is not allowed to see anybody. Mama and I thought that we would go up to Berkeley and see her, but have decided not to do so. Next month, a month from today, we are leaving for Yellow Springs, Ohio, where we are to stay for a week in connection with the Centennial Celebration of Antioch College. Perhaps we shall come back by way of Portland.

As to the Penguin books, I think that you might try the experiment of having all of them sent to me for a year. If, as you say, the total cost is about $50, I think that it would be worth while. I have not received any since about the first batch of about a dozen.

Please let me know how much I should reimburse you for the expenses of your travel to Greece

Love from

[Linus Pauling]

Linus Pauling:W