But to return to IUPAC [International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry], we were set up to study all the literature that was being published year by year and to recommend the best possible values for the atomic weight of each element. And that is what we did.

I joined in 1965 at the Paris meeting. By 1967 – we meet every two years in Cortina d’Ampezzo – I was a full member, in fact, I was then elected chairman at that stage and I stayed as chairman for quite some time thereafter. And as secretary, and a man who did a lot of the work, was Steffen Peiser, who was a physicist from the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, and we worked as a team. And the other members of the commission who were experts from many different countries would feed us with information and we would meet every two years for two or three days with the whole group and discuss what our report would be. And then that, for the next two years, was the atomic weights.