As I said in this post, I ordered a copy of "Electrons and Chemical Bonding" by Harry B. Gray and I have just received it. When I opened the first page, I saw this:
First thing I thought was if the signature belongs to R.S. Mulliken or not. I tried to find his signature on google images and these are the most relevant images:
First of all, I want to believe that the signature belongs to him.
I love buying used books and one of the reasons is that I like reading the notes of the previous owners. There is a good chance that the signature is fake or the signature belongs to Mulliken but the notes do not. Still, it is an interesting day for me. I hope chemists (and physicists) and historians of chemistry(and physics) help me to find out the truth.
But the story is not finished yet. The book is full of notes, questions, comments, arrows etc. It is obvious whoever took notes on this book is someone who knows chemistry and physics enough to notice details and ask questions. But, I can not read most of the notes since they are written in a kind of handwriting. I am sure any native English speaker can read them easily though. Here are some of them:
Excellent! Where did you buy the book from?
ReplyDeleteI bought in on Amazon for a few dollars. I think it is an old library book, there are no library markings on it though. I will be going to ACS Dallas next month and I am planning to find an opportunity to show it to Harry Gray. But, I don't know if it is a good idea and I don't know how he would react. I want to ask him, because if Mulliken wrote these and talked to him about it, I can be sure that it is his writing. And I will be more than happy if he would like to keep it.
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