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Contemporary reviews of Atomicity and Quanta (1926): AMS Bulletin, Google Books (Physical Review), Nature, 2026-10-08

Investigator run 1, Jeans-JH. Sites: ams.org / pubs.ams.org (Chrome), books.google.com (Chrome), nature.com (Chrome). Priority 2 (how others received the inventor's points) and 4 (historical record).

1. E. P. Adams, review in Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 32 (1926), Shorter Notices, p.720

  • Found by the Google query "Atomicity and Quanta" Jeans review Nature 1926. The issue table of contents (pubs.ams.org) lists "Atomicity and Quanta, by J. H. Jeans. Reviewer: E. P. Adams", DOI https://doi.org/10.1090/S0002-9904-1926-04321-4. PDF: https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1926-32-06/S0002-9904-1926-04321-4/S0002-9904-1926-04321-4.pdf [web]. The PDF opened in Chrome as a scan with no text layer and was read from the screenshot. Scripted download is blocked by Cloudflare, so there is no copy in files/.
  • Content (Nov.-Dec. 1926, p.720) [web, read from screen]: Adams summarises the lecture: space and time are linked by relativity, so are matter and energy, and the atomicity of matter "may imply a like property in energy". The evidence for the atomicity of energy from recent experiments seems "at first sight, almost conclusive", but the difficulty of reconciling a bullet theory of radiation with the undulatory theory leads to Jeans's closing conclusion, which Adams quotes. He praises the "lucid style". Signed "E. P. Adams".
  • Bearing: the reviewer is the same E. P. Adams whose 1901 rotating charged spheres the lecture uses as its model of a radiating atom (claim 6). Adams says nothing about that use or about the advanced-potential solution. Jeans thanks "Professor E. P. Adams" in the 1927 5th edition of his electricity textbook (see archive-org note), so the two were in contact. Stake: a colleague (both at Princeton when Jeans taught there, 1905-09 [memory, medium]), so not neutral but not commercial.

2. Richard C. Tolman, review in Physical Review (1926), p.1048

  • Found by the Google Books query "Jeans" "Rouse Ball" lecture 1925 convergent waves quanta. Google Books id mhF9sPYYGBAC ("Physical Review, 1926", full view); text page https://books.google.com/books?id=mhF9sPYYGBAC&pg=PA1048&output=text [web]. The volume number was not confirmed on screen; the reviewer's signature "RICHARD C. TOLMAN" follows the review.
  • Content [web]: "This little book of sixty-four pages is a reprint of the Rouse Ball lecture delivered on May 11, 1925. It contains a stimulating and attractive essay partly philosophical and partly physical." Tolman summarises the lecture's position: quantum rules restrict emission and absorption "but not the character of radiation in free space", and new solutions of the wave equations "must be found... which will permit the convergence of spherical waves into an absorbing atom as well as the divergence of spherical waves from an emitting atom." He continues: "The lecture was delivered almost simultaneously with the reports of the experimental work of Compton and Simon and Bothe and Geiger, which have greatly increased the difficulties of the wave theory, even for radiation in free space, and it will be of interest to see what modifications this will introduce in the point of view of Jeans."
  • Bearing (claims 5, 6): a leading contemporary physicist's reading, recorded at the time. Tolman names the experiments that bear on the lecture's Compton alternative and undulatory picture. He states the timing as "almost simultaneously". He does not say Jeans ignored them. This answers the deep read's request to check the dates (see also the Wikipedia note: Bothe-Geiger reported in April 1925, Compton-Simon published 1 September 1925).

3. Nature 117, p.46, "Quantum Theory" (book review), published 12 June 1926

  • URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/117046a0x [web]. The heading reads "Atomicity and Quanta: being the Rouse Ball Lecture delivered on May 11, 1925. By Dr. J. H. Jeans. Pp. 64. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1926.) 2s. 6d. net." The text is behind a paywall (subscription or purchase), so the review was not read. Result: partial. Note: https://www.nature.com/articles/117046a0 (without the "x") is a different item, "The Solar Constant and Terrestrial Magnetism".
  • Possible free route: the Dolnoslaska Biblioteka Cyfrowa (dbc.wroc.pl) hosts PDF scans of Nature volumes. It appeared in Google results for vol. 118 (1926), not reached.

Other secondary citations seen in Google results (not opened)

  • Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter (1927), Project Gutenberg: says the present position is "aptly summarized by Dr Jeans in Atomicity and Quanta" [web, search snippet only].
  • H. Kragh and B. Carazza, "From time atoms to space-time quantization: the idea of discrete time, ca 1925-1936", Stud. Hist. Phil. Sci. 25 (1994) 437-462. It cites Atomicity and Quanta p.8, the space-time continuity argument (claim 5) [web, snippet; paywalled at ScienceDirect; PhilPapers record https://philpapers.org/rec/KRAFTA-3].
  • Enrico Fermi: His Work and Legacy (Springer) lists "Atomicity and quanta. Cambridge University Press, 1926" in a note [web, snippet].