LETTERS TO THE EDITORentirely accounted for by the simple theory based on a Thomas precession u T = aXv/2c 2 ,proportional to the acceleration a and velocity v of a nucleon endowed with an intrinsic spin. [4][5][6] The analysis of the magnetic moments of the three-nucleon nuclei involves the graphic concept of exchange currents 7 representing the transport of charged mesons responsible for some of the inter-nucleon interactions. Certain types of mesons which may be responsible for nuclear forces (7r-mesons with spin 1) are carriers of spin as well as of charge, and one may anticipate on the basis of similar graphic concepts that the process of meson exchange which binds a circulating nucleon to the rest of the nucleus involves a predominantly centripetal acceleration of the meson momentarily associated with the circulating nucleon. This meson acceleration is expected to be much greater than the centripetal acceleration of the nucleon, since the exchange process may be expected in effect to take place many times per revolution. Although one does not have at hand a sufficiently complete analysis of the energetics of meson fields, it seems plausible to suppose that this large acceleration a of the meson, together with the tangential component of v which the meson would have in common with the circulating nucleon, should give rise to a Thomas precession of the meson spin much more rapid than that of the intrinsic nucleon spin previously derived from (1). Even if somewhat suppressed by a weighting factor representing the ephemeral association of the meson and nucleon (as enters, for example, in the interpretation of anomalous nucleon magnetic moments), 8 this might still give a spin-orbit coupling
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