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Nature archive (nature.com), 2026-10-08

Investigator (STEP I), project Thompson-JJ. Reached through Google (site:nature.com Thomson 1913 "helium and neon" OR "triatomic hydrogen" OR "X3"), then article pages read in Chrome. PDFs are paywalled to scripts (curl returned HTML); the abstract/first-paragraph preview is readable in Chrome. Saved page HTML: research/pages/nature-*.html (evidence trail, not for publication).

Found

  1. J. J. Thomson, "On the Appearance of Helium and Neon in Vacuum Tubes", Nature 90, 645-647 (13 Feb 1913). https://www.nature.com/articles/090645d0 [web] - Opening paragraph (preview): Thomson writes that at the last Chemical Society meeting Ramsay, Collie and Patterson described experiments "which they regard as proving the transmutation" of other elements into helium and neon; his own results "seem to me in favour of a different explanation". He says he described some of these experiments in a Royal Institution lecture on 17 January 1913. [web] - Per Nelson's bibliography (see other-sites note) this letter was reprinted in Science 37 (949): 360-364 (7 Mar 1913) and in Scientific American Supplement. [web, Nelson; not checked] - Bears on claim 5 (helium/neon liberated by bombardment). This is the inventor's own, earliest public statement of his alternative to transmutation, two weeks after the Chemical Society meeting. The project's 1913 book (deep read pp.147-154) is the fuller version.
  2. Thomson, "Some Further Applications of the Method of Positive Rays", Nature 91, 333-337 (29 May 1913; Royal Institution discourse). https://www.nature.com/articles/091333c0 . Opening: "THE method to which I shall refer this evening is the one I described in a lecture I gave here two years ago" (i.e. 1911), then the apparatus (anode, kathode C, plates L M, poles P Q). [web] Own work, priority 1; full text not read (paywall).
  3. "Origins of Helium and Neon", Nature 90, 653-654 (13 Feb 1913), news report of the Chemical Society meeting (Collie and Patterson; Thomson's objections). https://www.nature.com/articles/090653a0 [web] Not read beyond title.
  4. Bohuslav Brauner, "Helium and Neon", Nature 91, 505 (17 Jul 1913). https://www.nature.com/articles/091505a0 . Google snippet: "The experiments communicated to the Chemical Society recently by Prof. Collie and Mr. Patterson, delivered by Sir J. J. Thomson, and the..." [web] Contemporary comment by a Czech chemist (atomic-weight specialist); text not read.
  5. Nature 90, 662 (1913) item mentions a gas "found to contain helium and neon, and, in addition, a new gas with the atomic weight 22" (snippet). https://www.nature.com/articles/090662a0.pdf [web] Bears on claim 5 (the 22 line).
  6. C. Dakshinamurti, "Triatomic Hydrogen and Doppler Effect in Hydrogen Positive Rays", Nature 159, 27 (1947), cites Thomson Proc. Roy. Soc. A 89, 1 (1913). https://www.nature.com/articles/159027a0 [web] Later work by others on X3/H3 (claim 5); not read.

How it bears on the claims

  • Claim 5: the record shows Thomson publicly took the "liberated, not created" side within days, while keeping open the possibility of atomic disintegration (the book's wording). His own Nature letter and May 1913 RI discourse are primary texts not in the project folder.