. The explanation of the appearance of positively charged hydrogen molecules in experiments on positive rays may therefore at first sight be considered as a serious difficulty for the present theory. A possible explanation, however, might be sought in the special conditions under which the systems are observed. We are probably dealing in such a case not with the formation of a stationary system by a regular interaction of systems containing single nuclei (see the next section), but rather with a delay in the breaking up of a configuration brought about by the sudden removal of one of the electrons by impact of a single particle.
Another stable configuration containing a few electrons is one consisting of a ring of three electrons and two nuclei of charges
and
. A numerical calculation gives
where
is the radius of the ring and