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Linus Pauling Biography

Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace

Linus Pauling Date of birth: February 28, 1901

Date of death: August 19, 1994

Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, where his parents

encouraged his scientific interests from the beginning. When Linus's
father died, his mother found it difficult to support the large family. Linus
was an able student and won scholarships to Oregon State University at
Corvallis, but he had to work long hours as a laborer to support himself
while he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. He went on to earn a
Ph.D. in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, the
institution where he taught and carried out his research for the next 33
years.

The young scientist first made his mark in the world of chemistry with his
use of X-rays to examine the molecular structure of crystals. This work
led him to a more thorough investigation of the nature of the chemical
bond. Pauling revolutionized chemistry in the 1920s with his application
of quantum physics to the study of chemistry. He used the new theory of
wave mechanics to explain molecular structures which had baffled
chemists for years. Pauling's resonance theory proposed that some molecules
"resonate" between different structures, rather than holding a single fixed
structure. This insight made possible the creation of many of the drugs, dyes,
plastics and synthetic fibers we take for granted today. Pauling publicized his
findings in a series of papers culminating in an essential work of modern
chemistry: The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules
and Crystals.

Dr. Pauling next turned his attention to the study of organic substances,
particularly proteins. By 1942, Pauling and his colleagues had succeeded in
producing synthetic antibodies, a major breakthrough. In 1945 Pauling was co-
chairman of a project which developed a substitute for blood plasma. In 1949,
he performed a groundbreaking study of sickle cell anemia, a disease which
disproportionately affects men and women of African descent. In 1951, Pauling
and Robert B. Corey described the atomic structure of proteins for the first time.
This work had enormous implications for the struggle against disease.

The detonation of the first atomic weapons in 1945 posed an ethical dilemma
for Pauling. The more he studied the effects of radiation, the more he became convinced that a nuclear war, or
even the continued atmospheric testing of these weapons, could do irreparable damage to the environment and
the human population. Because the government was attempting to conceal the dangers of nuclear testing from
the public, Pauling believed it was his duty to speak out, but in the first years
of the cold war, many Americans considered such dissent treasonous. Pauling
could not remain silent. In books, interviews and press conferences, he
educated the public about the hazards of radiation and campaigned for peace,
disarmament and the end of nuclear testing. These activities cost him friends,
funding for his research, and the job he had held at Cal Tech for 33 years.

The State Department revoked Pauling's passport, but when he won the Nobel
Prize for Chemistry in 1954 and was unable to leave the U.S. to accept it, the
pressure of world opinion forced the Department to relent. Pauling continued
his peace activism, and in 1957 drafted a petition calling for an end to the
atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. By the time Pauling delivered his
petition to the UN, he had collected the signatures of 11,021 scientists from
all over the world. This campaign led to a Nobel Peace Prize for Pauling in 1962, and to the first Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty.

Linus Pauling remained active in anti-war movements, but he won even greater fame for his studies of the role
of nutrition in fighting disease. His 1970 book, Vitamin C and the Common Cold, recommended megadoses of
vitamin C to ward off colds and lessen their symptoms. Millions of people now follow this advice. Pauling's
theory of "orthomolecular" substances and his views concerning the potential role of vitamin C in fighting
cancer have not won wide acceptance in the medical community, but many researchers have followed where he
led in studying the role of vitamins and other nutrients in preserving health and fighting disease.

In 1973, Dr. Pauling founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. From this base, he continued
his researches and worked to educate the public about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of vitamins. He
received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal for Merit and the National Medal of Science. He
published books for the general reader on a variety of subjects, from one of his first, No More War, to one of his
last, How to Live Longer and Feel Better.

Linus Pauling died on August 19th, 1994, at the age of 93.

LINUS PAULING
A Biography
Linus Pauling was born with twin legacies. Although his parents could give him very little in the way of
material wealth, they did give him the better gift of great intelligence. His brilliant mind eventually provided
him with financial security as well as his greatest happiness. It can also be argued that this gift of intelligence
was responsible for the controversy that seemed to surround everything he did and everything he wrote. He
made great intuitive leaps and was frequently criticized for the conclusions he drew from what some felt was
too little experimentation, often outside of Pauling's area of expertise.

His father was part pharmacist and part "medicine man" and wasn't especially successful at either. At the time
when Linus was born in 1901 the family was living in what is now the wealthiest suburb of Portland, Oregon.
However, they lived a very precarious existence at the edges of poverty. In fact, when Linus was four, the
family moved to his mother's home town of Condon to get financial aid from her family. Condon is a small
town in north central Oregon and in many ways then (and now) was a stereotypical 'Western' town with one
main street and false fronts on many of the business buildings. In Condon his father took over the town drug
store and Linus began exploring the physical world around him. A small creek flows on the south edge of town.
There he and a friend explored the rocky creek bed and collected some of the minerals for which Pauling would
eventually establish structures at the California Institute of Technology . It was likely during this time in
Condon that Pauling developed his antipathy to snow and very cold weather. Condon's altitude is about 4000
feet and during the winter the temperature may not go above -20 Fahrenheit for days at a time. The wind roars
through town because the town sits on top of the Columbia Basalt plateau and for miles around there is nothing
to deflect the winds.

The Pauling family moved back to Portland just after Linus began school. When he was nine, his father died,
leaving Linus, his two younger sisters and their mother to make their own way in the world. This began a
stretch of more than 15 years when Pauling tried to pursue his education, while his mother tried to get him to
quit school and become the support of the family. He did not quit school. However, he did find many ingenious
ways to make money and most of it went to help support his mother and sisters. By the time he was twelve he
was a freshman at Washington High School in Portland. After four years of learning, with or without the help of
his teachers, and of odd jobs (delivering milk, running film projectors, and even working in a shipyard, for
example) he left high school. He did not graduate because the high school required their students to take a class
in civics and Pauling saw no reason why he should since he could absorb any of that from his own reading.
Later, after his Nobel Prize for Peace in 1962, the administration agreed that he had learned civics on his own
by granting him his high school diploma. In the fall of 1917 Pauling enrolled in Oregon Agricultural College-
now Oregon State University-in Corvallis, Oregon. He sailed through the freshman courses required of a
chemical engineering major in spite of the fact that he was also working one hundred hours a month. He was
not only supporting himself, but also providing the bulk of his family¹s support. This became more and more
arduous after his mother became ill. In fact, he did not return to the college after his sophomore year because of
the need for money. However, at the first of November of what would have been his junior year, he received an
offer to become an instructor of quantitative analysis at Oregon Agricultural College, a course he had just taken
as a sophomore! The offer included a salary of $100 a month and he gladly took it. He himself did not take any
courses that year. He met his future wife, Ava Helen Miller, when she was a student in his quantitative analysis
class.

When he had graduated with his degree in chemical engineering, his mother again began pressuring him to stop
his education and make money, perhaps become a secondary school teacher. Pauling, however, had applied to
graduate schools at Harvard, Berkeley and the fairly new California Institute of Technology. His first choice
was Berkeley because G.N. Lewis himself was the chair of the chemistry department, but Berkeley was too
slow in replying to his application. Harvard didn't really interest him much, so his decision was made in favor of
Cal. Tech. One year after begining work at Cal. Tech. he married Ava Helen Miller.

At the California Institute of Technology his advisor was Roscoe Dickinson, whose area of expertise was X-ray
crystallography. At this time Dickinson was investigating the crystal structure of various minerals. In his work
with Dickinson, Pauling displayed what was to become his standard method of attacking a problem. According
to Dr. Edward Hughes, "He would guess what the structure might be like, and then he would arrange it to fit
into the other data. . . he could then calculate the intensities he would get from that structure and then compare it
with the observed ones." For the rest of his career Pauling was criticized for using too large an amount of
intuition in his work and not always having complete data to back up what he wrote. As well as doing his
research work, Pauling was taking courses and serving as a teaching assistant in the freshman chemistry course.
He received his Ph. D. in chemistry with high honors in the June of 1925. His dissertation comprized the
various papers he had already published on the crystal structure of different minerals.

A year later, when he was 25, he received a Guggenheim fellowship to study at the University of Munich under
Arnold Sommerfeld, a theoretical physicist. Here he began work with quantum mechanics. In January of 1927
he published "The Theoretical Prediction of the Physical Properties of Many Electron Atoms and Ions; Mole
Refraction, Diamagnetic Susceptibility, and Extension in Space" in which he applied the concept of quantum
mechanics to chemical bonding. In March, a heated exchange took place between Pauling and W.L. Bragg in
London over this paper. Bragg believed that Pauling had used some of his ideas without giving him credit for
them. According to Pauling, the ideas originated in a paper by Gregor Wentzel on quantum mechanical
calculations for electrons in complex atoms. "Wentzel reported poor agreement between the calculated and
experimental values, but I found that his calculation was incomplete and that when it was carried out correctly,
it led to values... in good agreement with the experimental values." In 1928 he published six principles to decide
the structure of complicated crystals. This bothered Bragg even more since they did not all originate with
Pauling. Actually, according to Horach Judson, "Pauling clarified them, codified them, demonstrated their
generality and power." However, Bragg was spreading stories in England about Pauling's "thievery" and lack of
professional ethics.

At this time Pauling took an assistant professorship in chemistry at Cal. Tech. There was a discrepancy,
however, in what he thought he was being offered and what he was actually given. He had thought he was
taking an appointment as Assistant Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Mathematical Physics. This
misunderstanding seems to have been a thorn in his side. However, thorn or no thorn, he began a period of
intense and productive work. In 1928 he published a paper on orbital hybridization and resonance. In 1931 he
published the first paper, "The Nature of the Chemical Bond". At this time he was also teaching classes. One of
his responsibilities was the freshman chemistry course. Richard Noyes, now professor emeritus of physical
chemistry at the University of Oregon, remembers that Pauling was an exciting lecturer and had an unbelievable
ability as a demonstrator. He would be explaining something and "suddenly his mind would go off in a new
direction, frequently into areas where the freshmen couldn't follow him." Dr. Noyes remembers one redox
titration when Pauling turned on the buret then stepped to the chalkboard and began to write the equation for the
reaction. He was glancing at the flask in which the reaction was taking place and suddenly moved back to the
buret and turned it off, then swirled the mixture in the flask. The color was perfect, a perfect endpoint!

In 1931 Pauling was awarded the Langmuir Prize of the American Chemical Society for "the most noteworthy
work in pure science done by a man under 30 years of age." In the same year he was offered a joint full
professorship in both chemistry and physics at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. He seriously
considered the offer but he didn't want to have to brave the Massachusetts' winters. He ended up by accepting
the position for one year only. In 1933 he was made a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He was
32, the youngest appointment to this body ever made.

Pauling was later to write, "By 1935, I had worked out most of the fundamental problems connected with the
chemical bond." and "My serious interest in what is now called molecular biology began about 1935." He began
with a look at hemoglobin. He discovered that the hemoglobin in arteries is repelled by a magnet while that in
the veins is attracted to a magnet. His answer to this puzzle resulted in a paper on oxygen's binding to
hemoglobin in 1936. The work on hemoglobin also lead to work on hydrogen-bonding between the polypeptide
chains in proteins and another paper that same year on the denaturing of proteins. Also in 1936, he was made
chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Cal. Tech. In 1939 he published his most
important book, The Nature of the Chemical Bond.

His work on hydrogen-bonding in proteins lead him to develop a theory of protein structure. It was generally
accepted that proteins were made up of polypeptide chains which were, in turn, made up of long strings of
amino acids, bonded end to end. He tried to demonstrate a way of coiling the polypeptide chain in the protein
alpha keratin to match the x-rays that crystallographer W.T. Astbury had taken and interpreted, but was unable
to fit a model to the data. Working with Corey, he did establish the structures of many small peptides and
established that the peptide bond holding amino acids together is planar. In 1939 they formulated a small set of
structural conditions for any model of a popypeptide chain.

Finally, in 1948, Pauling worked out the alpha helix structure of a polypeptide. He was in Oxford at this time,
confined to bed with nephritis and bored with what he had to read. He says, "I took a sheet of paper and
sketched the atoms with the bonds between them and then folded the paper to bend one bond at the right angle,
what I thought it should be relative to the other, and kept doing this, making a helix, until I could form hydrogen
bonds between one turn of the helix and the next turn of the helix, and it only took a few hours doing that to
discover the alpha-helix." In 1954 Linus Pauling was given the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work on
molecular structure, especially proteins.

During World War II Pauling worked on various "war" projects as did everyone at Cal. Tech. He chose not to
work on the Manhattan Project, however. At the same time his wife was becoming more and more involved in
socialist politics. They fought the internment of their Japanese-American gardener and, with the American Civil
Liberties Union, the internment of all the Japanese-Americans. He was also becoming more and more worried
about the atomic bomb and the radiation it produced. He became involved in the Scientists Movement, a more-
or-less nation-wide group of scientists working for safe control of nuclear power. The Movement believed in
³the necessity for all nations to make every effort to cooperate now in setting up an international administration
with police powers which can effectively control at least the means of nuclear warfare.² His wife was a member
of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. In fact, at this time, she was probably more
outspoken on the issues of human rights, peace and the banning of nuclear testing than Pauling was. In 1947
President Truman awarded him the presidential Medal of Merit for his work on crystal structure, the nature of
the chemical bond, and his efforts to bring about world peace.

In November of 1950, he was subpoenaed to appear before the Senate Investigating Committee on Education of
the State of California. He testified for over two hours, "mainly about my reasons for objecting to special
loyalty oaths involving inquiry into political beliefs." He wrote the next day, "My own political beliefs are well
known. I am not a Communist. I have never been a Communist. I have never been involved with the
Communist Party. I am a Rooseveltian Democrat." However, he also believed that no governmental body had
the right to ask him to answer those same questions under oath. This was during the early days of the McCarthy
"witch hunts", which were stronger at the time in California than at most other places. His position upset some
of the trustees and some professors at Cal .Tech., who tried to oust him.

This was just after Pauling, working with Corey, had used the idea gained from his paper model to work out the
structure of many different protein molecules, all of which contained his alpha-helix. His proposed structure
was not immediately accepted by the scientific world, however, especially by scientists in England. Therefore,
in January of 1952, Pauling requested a passport to attend a meeting in England, specifically to defend his ideas.
The passport was denied because granting it "would not be in the best interest of the United States." He applied
again and wrote President Eisenhower, asking him to arrange the issuance of the passport since, "I am a loyal
citizen of the United States. I have never been guilty of any unpatriotic or criminal act." The answer came back
asking him to provide the State Department with some evidence supporting his claims. He sent a statement,
made under oath, stating that he was not a communist, never had been a communist, and had never been
involved with the Communist Party. The state department replied that his "anti-communist statements were not
sufficiently strong" and again denied the passport on the very day he was supposed to leave for the conference.
This pattern of Pauling requesting a passport to attend various conferences and the state department denying the
application continued for a little over two years. During this time Einstein wrote a letter to the state department
supporting Pauling's right to have a passport. He also wrote Pauling telling him, "It is very meritorious of you to
fight for the right to travel."

In 1953 Pauling published his book, No More War. Again in April of 1954, when he requested a passport, he
was denied it. On November 3 of that year, while he was giving a "routine lecture" on hemoglobin at Cornell
University, he was called to the telephone to learn that he had just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
His first worry was, would he be able to get a passport so he could accept the prize in person? He applied
immediately and for weeks he heard nothing. In Washington there were strong voices opposing the granting of
the passport. One senator asked, "Are you in the State Department allowing some group of people in some
foreign country to determine which Americans get passports?" On November 27, however, barely two weeks
before the ceremony in Sweden, his passport did arrive.

His years of being unable to get a passport did more than inconvenience him. In 1948 he was already working
toward a description of the structure of DNA. By the early 1950's, Rosalind Franklin and others working at
Kings College in London had taken some of the sharpest, most detailed photographs of DNA ever. These are
what Watson and Crick used in their successful discovery of the DNA double helix. Had Pauling been able to
attend the spring 1952 conference he would likely have seen these photographs and might have come to the
same conclusion, before Watson and Crick. It is sure that his not seeing them contributed to his proposed
structure which had the phosphate groups closely packed inside a single helix with the bases sticking out around
the outside.

Pauling continued his political activism, particularly his protesting of atomic bomb testing. This culminated in a
petition to the United Nations--signed by 11,021 scientists from around the world--calling for an immediate
world-wide ban on nuclear testing. Because of this petition he was subpoenaed to appear before the U.S. Senate
Internal Security Committee. The committee wanted him to give the names of the petitioning scientists. Under
oath, he admitted that he, Barry Commoner, and Edward Condon had initiated the petition, but refused to give
any more names. There was much applause from the gallery and, after a while, the committee backed down.
Later, during the Kennedy Administration, after Kennedy had decided to go ahead with atmospheric nuclear
testing, Pauling sent President Kennedy a telegram asking, ³Are you to give the orders that will cause you to go
down in history as one of the most immoral men of all times and one of the greatest enemies of the human race?
² Of course, this telegram raised quite a furor. However, the Kennedys still invited him to a White House dinner
honoring Nobel Prize winners of the western hemisphere. On the day of the dinner, both Dr. and Mrs. Pauling
took part in a demonstration in front of the White House, then left the picket line to go in to dinner. Later that
evening, Pauling even danced with Mrs. Kennedy.

On October 10, 1962, it was announced that Linus Pauling had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his
efforts on behalf of a nuclear test ban treaty. This award was not universally popular. Many newspapers and
magazines printed editorials denouncing him, his activism,and his having been given the prize.

Since his second Nobel Prize, Dr. Pauling has researched the chemistry of the brain and its effect on mental
illness, the cause of sickle-cell anemia and what is happening to the hemoglobin in the red blood cells of people
with this disease, and the effects of large doses of vitamin C on both the common cold and some kinds of
cancer. He recently published papers on high temperature super conductivity. He has worked at the University
of California at San Diego, at Stanford and at the Linus Pauling Institute for Medical Research. He has won
many awards in chemistry, including all the major ones. He remains, as he has been all his life, a brilliant man
with brilliant ideas. He was once asked by a high school student , "How can I have great ideas?" Pauling's
answer was, "The important thing is to have many ideas." He has certainly followed his own advice.
Linus Pauling
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Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, peace activist, author,
and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important
scientists in any field of the 20th century[1][2]. Pauling was among the first scientists to work in the fields of
quantum chemistry, molecular biology, and orthomolecular medicine. He is one of only 4 individuals to have
won multiple Nobel Prizes, the only one to win two in unrelated fields (the Chemistry and Peace prizes),[3] and
the only person to have been awarded each of his prizes without sharing it with another recipient.[4]

Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, spent part of his childhood in the small town of Condon, Oregon, then
returned and attended high school in Portland. He dropped out of high school one class short of graduation in
order to attend Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University), from which he graduated in 1922
with a degree in chemical engineering. Pauling then went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech),
where he received his Ph. D in physical chemistry and mathematical physics in 1925. Two years later, he
accepted a position at Caltech as an assistant professor in theoretical chemistry. In 1932, Pauling published a
landmark paper, detailing his theory of orbital hybridization and analyzed the tetravalency of carbon. That year,
he also established the concept of electronegativity and developed a scale that would help predict the nature of
chemical bonding. Pauling continued this work, but also began publishing papers on the structure of the atomic
nucleus. In 1954, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. As a biochemist, Pauling conducted
research with X-ray crystallography and modeling in crystal and protein structures. This type of approach was
used by Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick in the U.K to discover the double helix structure of
the DNA molecule.

During the Second World War, Pauling worked on military research and development. However, when the war
ended he became particularly concerned about the further development and possible use of atomic weapons and
with the destruction inflicted on the world by war in general. Ava Helen Pauling, Linus's wife, was a pacifist
and in time he came to share her views.[5] Pauling soon began to express his concerns with the effects of nuclear
fallout and in 1962, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against above ground nuclear testing.
His beliefs were not without controversy at the time and he was criticized by some for his actions.

Pauling was also successful as an author and educator. His first book, The Nature of the Chemical Bond (1939),
is considered influential even to this day, as is his introductory textbook, General Chemistry (1947). Later in
life, he became an advocate for greatly increased consumption of vitamin C and other nutrients. He generalized
his ideas to define orthomolecular medicine, which is still regarded as unorthodox by conventional medicine.
He popularized his concepts, analyses, research and insights in several successful but controversial books, such
as How to Live Longer and Feel Better in 1986.

Contents
[hide]

• 1 Biography
o 1.1 Early years
 1.1.1 Higher education
 1.1.2 Personal life
o 1.2 Career
 1.2.1 Activism
 1.2.2 Biological molecules
 1.2.3 Molecular genetics
 1.2.4 Molecular medicine and medical research
 1.2.5 Nature of the chemical bond
 1.2.6 Structure of the atomic nucleus
• 2 Legacy
• 3 Honors and awards
• 4 Publications
• 5 See also
• 6 Notes
• 7 References
• 8 Further reading

• 9 External links

[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years

Herman Henry William Pauling c. 1900, Linus Pauling's father

Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon as the first born child to Herman Henry William Pauling (1876–1910)
and Lucy Isabelle "Belle" Darling (1881–1926).[6] He was named "Linus Carl", in honor of Lucy's father, Linus,
and Herman's father, Carl.[7] Herman and Lucy—then 23 and 18 years old, respectively—had met at a dinner
party in Condon. Six months later, the two were married.[8]

Herman Pauling descended from South-German farmers, who had immigrated to a German settlement in
Concordia, Missouri. Carl Pauling moved his family to California before settling in Oswego. There, he worked
as an ironmonger at a foundry.[9] After completing grammar school, Herman Pauling served as an apprentice to
a druggist. Upon completion of his services, he became a wholesale drug salesman.[10]

Pauling's mother, Lucy, of Irish descent, was the daughter of Linus Wilson Darling, who had served as a
teacher, farmer, surveyor, postmaster and lawyer at different points of his life. Linus Darling was orphaned at
age 11 and apprenticed under a baker before becoming a schoolteacher. He fell in love with a young woman
named Alice from Turner, Oregon, whom he eventually married.[11] On July 17, 1888, Alice gave birth to the
couple's fifth child, but he was stillborn. Less than a month later, she died, leaving Darling to take care of their
four young daughters.[12]

Linus Pauling spent his first year living in a one-room apartment with his parents in Portland. In 1902, after his
sister Pauline was born, Pauling's parents decided to move out of the city.[13] They were crowded in their
apartment, but couldn't afford more spacious living quarters in Portland. Lucy stayed with her husband's parents
in Oswego, while Herman searched for new housing. Herman brought the family to Salem, where he took up a
job as a traveling salesman for the Skidmore Drug Company. Within a year of Lucile's birth in 1904, Herman
Pauling moved his family to Oswego, where he opened his own drugstore.[13] The business climate in Oswego
was poor, so he moved his family to Condon in 1905.[14]

In 1909, Pauling's grandfather, Linus, divorced his second wife and married a young schoolteacher, almost the
same age as his daughter Lucy. A few months later, he died of a heart attack, brought on by complications from
nephritis.[15] Meanwhile, Herman Pauling was suffering from poor health and had regular sharp pains in his
abdomen. Lucy's sister, Abbie, saw that Herman was dying and immediately called the family physician. The
doctor gave Herman a sedative to reduce the pain, but it only offered temporary relief.[16] His health worsened in
the coming months and finally died of a perforated ulcer on June 11, 1910, leaving Lucy to care for Linus,
Lucile and Pauline.[17]

Linus was a voracious reader as a child, and at one point his father wrote a letter to The Oregonian inviting
suggestions of additional books to occupy his time.[18] Pauling first planned to become a chemist after being
amazed by experiments conducted with a small chemistry lab kit by his friend, Lloyd A. Jeffress.[19] In high
school, Pauling continued to conduct chemistry experiments, borrowing much of the equipment and material
from an abandoned steel plant. With an older friend, Lloyd Simon, Pauling set up Palmon Laboratories.
Operating from Simon's basement, the two young adults approached local dairies to offer their services in
performing butterfat samplings at cheap prices. Dairymen were wary of trusting two young boys with the task,
and as such, the business ended as a failure.[20]

By the fall of 1916, Pauling was a 15-year-old high school senior and had enough credits to enter Oregon
Agricultural College (OAC, now known as Oregon State University) in Corvallis.[21] However, he did not have
credit for two required American history courses that would satisfy his requirement to earn a high school
diploma. He asked the school principal if he could take these courses concurrently during the spring semester.
The principal denied his request, and Pauling decided to leave the school in June without a diploma.[22] His high
school, Washington High School in Portland, awarded him the diploma 45 years later, after he had won two
Nobel Prizes.[23][24] During the summer, Pauling worked part-time at a grocery store, earning eight dollars a
week. His mother set him up with an interview with a Mr. Schwietzerhoff, the owner of a number of
manufacturing plants in Portland. Pauling was hired as an apprentice machinist with a salary of 40 dollars a
month. Pauling excelled at his job, and saw his salary increase to 50 dollars a month after being on the job for
only a month.[25] In his spare time, he set up a photography lab with two friends and found business from a local
photography company. He hoped that the business would earn him enough money to pay for his future college
expenses.[26] Pauling received a letter of admission from OAC in September 1917 and immediately gave notice
to his boss and told his mother of his plans.[27]
[edit] Higher education

Pauling's graduation photo from Oregon Agricultural College in 1922

In October 1917, Pauling entered Oregon Agricultural College and lived in a boarding house on campus with
his cousin Mervyn and another man, using the $200 he had saved from odd jobs to finance his education. In his
first semester, Pauling registered for two courses in chemistry, two in mathematics, mechanical drawing,
introduction to mining and use of explosives, modern English prose, gymnastics and military drill.[28] Pauling
fell in love with a freshman girl named Irene early in the school year. By the end of October, he had used up
$150 of his savings on her, taking her to shows and games. He soon got a job at the girls' dormitory, working
100 hours a month chopping wood for stoves, cutting up beef and mopping up the kitchen. Despite the 25 cent
per hour salary, Pauling was still having trouble managing his finances. He began eating one hot meal a day at a
restaurant off campus to minimize his expenses.[28] Pauling was active in campus life and founded the school's
chapter of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.[29] After his second year, he planned to take a job in Portland to help
support his mother, but the college offered him a position teaching quantitative analysis, a course he had just
finished taking himself. He worked forty hours a week in the laboratory and classroom and earned $100 a
month.[30] This allowed him to continue his studies at the college.

In his last two years at school, Pauling became aware of the work of Gilbert N. Lewis and Irving Langmuir on
the electronic structure of atoms and their bonding to form molecules.[30] He decided to focus his research on
how the physical and chemical properties of substances are related to the structure of the atoms of which they
are composed, becoming one of the founders of the new science of quantum chemistry. Pauling began to
neglect his studies in humanities and social sciences. He had also exhausted the course offerings in the physics
and mathematics departments. Professor Samuel Graf selected Pauling to be his teaching assistant in a high-
level mathematics course.[31] During the winter of his senior year, Pauling was approached by the college to
teach a chemistry course for home economics majors. It was in one of these classes that Pauling met his future
wife, Ava Helen Miller.[32]

In 1922, Pauling graduated from OAC with a degree in chemical engineering and went on to graduate school at
the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, under the guidance of Roscoe G.
Dickinson. His graduate research involved the use of X-ray diffraction to determine the structure of crystals. He
published seven papers on the crystal structure of minerals while he was at Caltech. He received his Ph. D. in
physical chemistry and mathematical physics, summa cum laude, in 1925.

[edit] Personal life

During his senior year of college, Pauling taught a class called "Chemistry for Home Economic Majors".[33] In
one of those classes, he met Ava Helen Miller from Beavercreek, whom he married on June 17, 1923. They had
four children: Linus Carl Jr. (b. 1925); Peter Jeffress (1931-2003, a crystallographer and lecturer in chemistry);
Edward Crellin (1937-1997, professor of biology at San Francisco State University and the University of
California, Riverside), and Linda Helen, (b. 1932).

Pauling was raised as member of the Lutheran Church, but later joined the Unitarian Universalist Church and
declared publicly his atheist belief two years before his death.[34]

[edit] Career

Pauling had first been exposed to the concepts of quantum theory and quantum mechanics while he was
studying at Oregon State University. He later traveled to Europe on a Guggenheim Fellowship, which was
awarded to him in 1926, to study under German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich, Danish physicist
Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, and Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in Zürich. All three were experts working
in the new field of quantum mechanics and other branches of physics. Pauling became interested in seeing how
quantum mechanics might be applied in his chosen field of interest, the electronic structure of atoms and
molecules. In Europe, Pauling was also exposed to one of the first quantum mechanical analyses of bonding in
the hydrogen molecule, done by Walter Heitler and Fritz London. Pauling devoted the two years of his
European trip to this work and decided to make it the focus of his future research. He became one of the first
scientists in the field of quantum chemistry and a pioneer in the application of quantum theory to the structure
of molecules. He also joined Alpha Chi Sigma, the professional chemistry fraternity.
In 1927, Pauling took a new position as an assistant professor at Caltech in theoretical chemistry. He launched
his faculty career with a very productive five years, continuing with his X-ray crystal studies and also
performing quantum mechanical calculations on atoms and molecules. He published approximately fifty papers
in those five years, and created five rules now known as Pauling's Rules. By 1929, he was promoted to associate
professor, and by 1930, to full professor. In 1931, the American Chemical Society awarded Pauling the
Langmuir Prize for the most significant work in pure science by a person 30 years of age or younger.[35] The
following year, Pauling published what he regarded as his most important paper, in which he first laid out the
concept of hybridization of atomic orbitals and analyzed the tetravalency of the carbon atom.[36]

At Caltech, Pauling struck up a close friendship with theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer, who was
spending part of his research and teaching schedule away from U.C. Berkeley at Caltech every year. The two
men planned to mount a joint attack on the nature of the chemical bond: apparently Oppenheimer would supply
the mathematics and Pauling would interpret the results. However, their relationship soured when Pauling began
to suspect that Oppenheimer was becoming too close to Pauling's wife, Ava Helen. Once, when Pauling was at
work, Oppenheimer had come to their place and blurted out an invitation to Ava Helen to join him on a tryst in
Mexico. Although she flatly refused, she reported the incident to Pauling. Disquieted by this strange chemistry,
and her apparent nonchalance about the incident, he immediately cut off his relationship with Oppenheimer.

In the summer of 1930, Pauling made another European trip, during which he learned about the use of electrons
in diffraction studies similar to the ones he had performed with X-rays. After returning, he built an electron
diffraction instrument at Caltech with a student of his, L. O. Brockway, and used it to study the molecular
structure of a large number of chemical substances.

Pauling introduced the concept of electronegativity in 1932. Using the various properties of molecules, such as
the energy required to break bonds and the dipole moments of molecules, he established a scale and an
associated numerical value for most of the elements—the Pauling Electronegativity Scale—which is useful in
predicting the nature of bonds between atoms in molecules.

[edit] Activism

Pauling had been practically apolitical until World War II, but the aftermath of the war and his wife's pacifism
changed his life profoundly, and he became a peace activist. During the beginning of the Manhattan Project,
Robert Oppenheimer invited him to be in charge of the Chemistry division of the project, but he declined, not
wanting to uproot his family. He did work on other projects that had military applications such as explosives,
rocket propellants, an oxygen meter for submarines and patented an armor piercing shell and was awarded a
Presidential Medal of Merit.[5][37] In 1946, he joined the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, chaired by
Albert Einstein.[38] Its mission was to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear
weapons. His political activism prompted the U.S. State Department to deny him a passport in 1952, when he
was invited to speak at a scientific conference in London.[39][40] His passport was restored in 1954, shortly before
the ceremony in Stockholm where he received his first Nobel Prize. Joining Einstein, Bertrand Russell and eight
other leading scientists and intellectuals, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955.[41]

In 1958, Pauling began a petition drive in cooperation with biologist Barry Commoner, who had studied
radioactive strontium-90 in the baby teeth of children across North America and concluded that above-ground
nuclear testing posed public health risks in the form of radioactive fallout.[42][43] He also participated in a public
debate with the atomic physicist Edward Teller about the actual probability of fallout causing mutations.[44] In
1958, Pauling and his wife presented the United Nations with a petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists
calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing. Public pressure subsequently led to a moratorium on above-ground
nuclear weapons testing, followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963 by John F. Kennedy and
Nikita Khrushchev. On the day that the treaty went into force, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Pauling the
Nobel Peace Prize, describing him as "Linus Carl Pauling, who ever since 1946 has campaigned ceaselessly, not
only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only against their very
use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts."[45] The Caltech Chemistry Department,
wary of his political views, did not even formally congratulate him. However, the Biology Department did
throw him a small party, showing they were more appreciative and sympathetic toward his work on radiation
mutation. At Caltech he founded Sigma Xi's (The Scientific Research Society) chapter at the school, as he had
previously been a member of that organisation. He continued his peace activism in the following years co-
founding the International League of Humanists in 1974. He was president of the scientific advisory board of
the World Union for Protection of Life and also one of the signers of the Dubrovnik-Philadelphia Statement.

Many of Pauling's critics, including scientists who appreciated the contributions that he had made in chemistry,
disagreed with his political positions and saw him as a naive spokesman for Soviet communism. He was
ordered to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which termed him "the number one
scientific name in virtually every major activity of the Communist peace offensive in this country." An
extraordinary headline in Life magazine characterized his 1962 Nobel Prize as "A Weird Insult from Norway".
Pauling was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize by the USSR in 1970.

[edit] Biological molecules

[hide]DoubleHelix
Discovery

Will
iam
Ast
bur
y

Os
wal
d
Ave
ry

Fra
ncis
Cric
k

Erw
in
Cha
rgaf
f

Ma
x
Del
brüc
k

Jerr
y
Don
ohu
e

Ros
alin
d
Fra
nkli
n

Ray
mon
d
Gos
ling

Pho
ebu
s
Lev
ene

Lin
us
Paul
ing

Sir
Joh
n
Ran
dall

Erw
in
Sch
rödi
nger

Ale
x
Sto
kes

Jam
es
Wat
son

Ma
uric
e
Wil
kins

Her
bert
Wil
son

In the mid-1930s, Pauling, strongly influenced by the biologically oriented funding priorities of the Rockefeller
Foundation's Warren Weaver, decided to strike out into new areas of interest. Although Pauling's early interest
had focused almost exclusively on inorganic molecular structures, he had occasionally thought about molecules
of biological importance, in part because of Caltech's growing strength in biology. Pauling interacted with such
great biologists as Thomas Hunt Morgan, Theodosius Dobzhanski, Calvin Bridges, and Alfred Sturtevant. His
early work in this area included studies of the structure of hemoglobin. He demonstrated that the hemoglobin
molecule changes structure when it gains or loses an oxygen atom. As a result of this observation, he decided to
conduct a more thorough study of protein structure in general. He returned to his earlier use of X-ray diffraction
analysis. But protein structures were far less amenable to this technique than the crystalline minerals of his
former work. The best X-ray pictures of proteins in the 1930s had been made by the British crystallographer
William Astbury, but when Pauling tried, in 1937, to account for Astbury's observations quantum mechanically,
he could not.

It took eleven years for Pauling to explain the problem: his mathematical analysis was correct, but Astbury's
pictures were taken in such a way that the protein molecules were tilted from their expected positions. Pauling
had formulated a model for the structure of hemoglobin in which atoms were arranged in a helical pattern, and
applied this idea to proteins in general.

In 1951, based on the structures of amino acids and peptides and the planarity of the peptide bond, Pauling,
Robert Corey, and Herman Branson correctly proposed the alpha helix and beta sheet as the primary structural
motifs in protein secondary structure. This work exemplified Pauling's ability to think unconventionally; central
to the structure was the unorthodox assumption that one turn of the helix may well contain a non-integral
number of amino acid residues.

Pauling then proposed that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) was a triple helix;[46] however, his model contained
several basic mistakes, including a proposal of neutral phosphate groups, an idea that conflicted with the acidity
of DNA. Sir Lawrence Bragg had been disappointed that Pauling had won the race to find the alpha helix
structure of proteins. Bragg's team had made a fundamental error in making their models of protein by not
recognizing the planar nature of the peptide bond. When it was learned at the Cavendish Laboratory that
Pauling was working on molecular models of the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick were allowed to make a
molecular model of DNA using unpublished data from Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King's
College. Early in 1953 James D. Watson and Francis Crick proposed a correct structure for the DNA double
helix. Pauling later cited several reasons to explain how he had been misled about the structure of DNA, among
them misleading density data and the lack of high quality X-ray diffraction photographs. During the time
Pauling was researching the problem, Rosalind Franklin in England was creating the world's best images. They
were key to Watson's and Crick's success. Pauling did not see them before devising his mistaken DNA
structure, although his assistant Robert Corey did see at least some of them, while taking Pauling's place at a
summer 1952 protein conference in England. Pauling had been prevented from attending because his passport
was withheld by the State Department on suspicion that he had Communist sympathies. This led to the legend
that Pauling missed the structure of DNA because of the politics of the day (this was at the start of the
McCarthy period in the United States).[47] Politics did not, however, play a critical role. Not only did Corey see
the images at the time, but Pauling himself regained his passport within a few weeks and toured English
laboratories well before writing his DNA paper. He had ample opportunity to visit Franklin's lab and see her
work, but chose not to. [48]

Pauling also studied enzyme reactions and was among the first to point out that enzymes bring about reactions
by stabilizing the transition state of the reaction, a view which is central to understanding their mechanism of
action. He was also among the first scientists to postulate that the binding of antibodies to antigens would be
due to a complementarity between their structures. Along the same lines, with the physicist turned biologist
Max Delbruck, he wrote an early paper arguing that DNA replication was likely to be due to complementarity,
rather than similarity, as suggested by a few researchers. This was made clear in the model of the structure of
DNA that Watson and Crick discovered.

[edit] Molecular genetics

In November 1949, Linus Pauling, Harvey Itano, S. J. Singer and Ibert Wells published "Sickle Cell Anemia, a
Molecular Disease"[49] in the journal Science. It was the first proof of a human disease caused by an abnormal
protein, and sickle cell anemia became the first disease understood at the molecular level. Using electrophoresis,
they demonstrated that individuals with sickle cell disease had a modified form of hemoglobin in their red blood
cells, and that individuals with sickle cell trait had both the normal and abnormal forms of hemoglobin. This
was also the first demonstration that Mendelian inheritance determined the specific physical properties of
proteins, not simply their presence or absence—the dawn of molecular genetics.

[edit] Molecular medicine and medical research

National Library of Medicine portrait

In 1941, at age 40, Pauling was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a renal disease. Experts believed then that
Bright's disease was untreatable. With the help of Dr. Thomas Addis at Stanford, Pauling was able to control the
disease with Addis' then unusual, low protein, salt-free diet. Addis also prescribed vitamins and minerals for all
his patients.

In 1951, Pauling gave a lecture entitled, "Molecular Medicine".[50] In the late 1950s, Pauling worked on the role
of enzymes in brain function, believing that mental illness may be partly caused by enzyme disfunction. It
wasn't until he read "Niacin Therapy in Psychiatry" by Abram Hoffer in 1965 that he realized that vitamins
might have important biochemical effects unrelated to their prevention of associated deficiency diseases.
Pauling published a brief paper, "Orthomolecular psychiatry", in the journal Science in 1968 (PMID 5641253)
that gave name and principle to the popular but controversial megavitamin therapy movement of the 1970s.
Pauling coined the term "orthomolecular" to refer to the practice of varying the concentration of substances
normally present in the body to prevent and treat disease. His ideas formed the basis of orthomolecular
medicine, which is not generally practiced by conventional medical professionals and is strongly criticized by
some.[51][52]

Pauling's work on vitamin C in his later years generated much controversy. He was first introduced to the
concept of high-dose vitamin C by biochemist Irwin Stone in 1966. After becoming convinced of its worth,
Pauling took 3 grams of vitamin C every day to prevent colds (Dunitz 1996:333). Excited by the results, he
researched the clinical literature and published Vitamin C and the Common Cold in 1970. He began a long
clinical collaboration with the British cancer surgeon Ewan Cameron in 1971 on the use of intravenous and oral
vitamin C as cancer therapy for terminal patients.[53] Cameron and Pauling wrote many technical papers and a
popular book, "Cancer and Vitamin C", that discussed their observations. Pauling made vitamin C popular with
the public, but the medical establishment regarded his claims that vitamin C could prevent colds and cure cancer
as quackery (Dunitz 1996:333), and considered the case closed after two randomized trials conducted by the
Mayo Clinic and published in the New England Journal of Medicine failed to replicate[54] Pauling's study, which
found that vitamin C supplementation lengthened survival times significantly.[55] Pauling denounced the
conclusions of these studies and handling of the final study as "fraud and deliberate misrepresentation."[56][57]
Pauling's original study, based on the observational studies of intravenous vitamin C by McCormick and
Klenner, used intravenous vitamin C for the first ten days, but the randomized trials did not.[54] Pauling
published critiques of the second Mayo-Moertel cancer trial's flaws over several years as he was able to slowly
unearth some of the trial's undisclosed details.[58] However, the wave of adverse publicity generated by Moertel
and the media effectively undercut Pauling's credibility and his vitamin C work for a generation,[59] the
oncological mainstream continued with other avenues of treatment.[60] Always precariously perched since his
molecular biologically inspired crusade to stop atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950s,[61] the 1985 Mayo-
Moertel confrontation left Pauling isolated from his institutional funding sources, academic support and a
bemused public. However, Pauling did have allies in his cause to promote Vitamic C. He worked with The
Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, an organization that treats brain-injured children, to
advocate the use of the vitamin."[62] He later collaborated with the Canadian physician Abram Hoffer on a
micronutrient regimen, including high-dose vitamin C, as adjunctive cancer therapy.[63] Of late the "connection
between vitamin C and cancer has become a respectable topic", and it was the subject of a Washington DC NIH
conference in 1990 (Dunitz 1996:334).

Linus Pauling's book How to Live Longer and Feel Better, advocated very high intake of vitamins.

As of 2007, new evidence of high-dose Vitamin C efficacy was proposed by a Canadian group of researchers
based on intravenous vitamin C. Intravenous vitamin C can achieve plasma concentrations up to 70-fold higher
than oral vitamin C.[64]The selective toxicity of vitamin C for cancer cells has been demonstrated in-vitro (i.e., in
a cell culture Petri dish), and was reported in 2005.[65] The combination of case-report data and preclinical
information suggest biological plausibility and the possibility of clinical efficacy at the possible expense of
critical toxicity at active doses; future clinical testing will ultimately determine the utility and safety of
intravenous high-dose Vitamin C treatments for patients with cancer. Researchers released a paper
demonstrating in-vivo vitamin C killing of cancer cells in The Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences in 2007.[66] These researchers observed longer-than expected survival times in three patients treated
with high doses of intravenous Vitamin C.[67] The researchers are reportedly planning a new Phase I clinical
trial.[68]

With two colleagues, Pauling founded the Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine in Menlo Park, California, in
1973, which was soon renamed the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. Pauling directed research
on vitamin C, but also continued his theoretical work in chemistry and physics until his death. In his last years,
he became especially interested in the possible role of vitamin C in preventing atherosclerosis and published
three case reports on the use of lysine and vitamin C to relieve angina pectoris. In 1996, the Linus Pauling
Institute moved from Palo Alto, California, to Corvallis, Oregon, to become part of Oregon State University,
where it continues to conduct research on micronutrients, phytochemicals (chemicals from plants), and other
constituents of the diet in preventing and treating disease. Several of the employees that had previously worked
at the Linus Pauling Institute in Palo Alto moved on to form the Genetic Information Research Institute.

[edit] Nature of the chemical bond

In the late 1920s Pauling began publishing papers on the nature of the chemical bond, leading to his famous
textbook on the subject published in 1939. It is based primarily on his work in this area that he received the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 "for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to
the elucidation of the structure of complex substances". Pauling summarized his work on the chemical bond in
The Nature of the Chemical Bond, one of the most influential chemistry books ever published.[69] In the 30 years
after its first edition was published in 1939, the book was cited more than 16,000 times. Even today, many
modern scientific papers and articles in important journals cite this work, more than half a century after first
publication.

Part of Pauling's work on the nature of the chemical bond led to his introduction of the concept of orbital
hybridization.[70] While it is normal to think of the electrons in an atom as being described by orbitals of types
such as s and p, it turns out that in describing the bonding in molecules, it is better to construct functions that
partake of some of the properties of each. Thus the one 2s and three 2p orbitals in a carbon atom can be
combined to make four equivalent orbitals (called sp³ hybrid orbitals), which would be the appropriate orbitals
to describe carbon compounds such as methane, or the 2s orbital may be combined with two of the 2p orbitals
to make three equivalent orbitals (called sp² hybrid orbitals), with the remaining 2p orbital unhybridized, which
would be the appropriate orbitals to describe certain unsaturated carbon compounds such as ethylene. Other
hybridization schemes are also found in other types of molecules.

Another area which he explored was the relationship between ionic bonding, where electrons are transferred
between atoms, and covalent bonding where electrons are shared between atoms on an equal basis. Pauling
showed that these were merely extremes, between which most actual cases of bonding fall. It was here
especially that Pauling's electronegativity concept was particularly useful; the electronegativity difference
between a pair of atoms will be the surest predictor of the degree of ionicity of the bond.[71]

The third of the topics that Pauling attacked under the overall heading of "the nature of the chemical bond" was
the accounting of the structure of aromatic hydrocarbons, particularly the prototype, benzene.[72] The best
description of benzene had been made by the German chemist Friedrich Kekulé. He had treated it as a rapid
interconversion between two structures, each with alternating single and double bonds, but with the double
bonds of one structure in the locations where the single bonds were in the other. Pauling showed that a proper
description based on quantum mechanics was an intermediate structure which was a blend of each. The
structure was a superposition of structures rather than a rapid interconversion between them. The name
"resonance" was later applied to this phenomenon.[73] In a sense, this phenomenon resembles that of
hybridization, described earlier, because it involves combining more than one electronic structure to achieve an
intermediate result.

[edit] Structure of the atomic nucleus

On September 16, 1952, Pauling opened a new research notebook with these words "I have decided to attack
the problem of the structure of nuclei."[74] On October 15, 1965, Pauling published his Close-Packed Spheron
Model of the atomic nucleus in two well respected journals, Science, and Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci..[75] For nearly
three decades, until his death in 1994, Pauling published numerous papers on his spheron cluster model.[76][77][78]
[79][80][81]

Few modern text books on nuclear physics discuss the Pauling Spheron Model of the Atomic Nucleus, yet it
provides a unique perspective, well published in the leading journals of science, on how fundamental "clusters
of nucleons" can form shell structure in agreement with recognized theory of quantum mechanics. Pauling was
well versed in quantum mechanics; he co-authored one of the first textbooks on the subject, Introduction to
Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry. In a 2006 review of models of atomic nuclei, Norman D.
Cook said of the Pauling Spheron Model: "...the model leads to a rather common-sense molecular build-up of
nuclei and has an internal logic that is hard to deny...however, despite two decades of advocacy by Pauling,
nuclear theorists have not elaborated on the idea of nucleon spherons, and Pauling's model has not entered
mainstream nuclear theory."[82] Taken at face value, the conclusions of Norman Cook imply that the 1965
Pauling Spheron Model of the atomic nucleus has simply been ignored.

The Pauling spheron nucleon clusters include the deuteron[NP], helion [PNP], and triton [NPN]. Even-even
nuclei were described as being composed of clusters of alpha particles, as has often been done for light nuclei.
He made an effort to derive the shell structure of nuclei from the Platonic solids rather than starting from an
independent particle model as in the usual shell model. It was sometimes said at that time that this work
received more attention than it would have if it had been done by a less famous person, but more likely Pauling
was taking a unique approach to understanding the relatively new discovery in the late 1940s of Maria
Goeppert-Mayer of structure within the nucleus. In an interview Pauling commented on his model:[83]

No
“w ”
rec
entl
y, I
hav
e
bee
n
tryi
ng
to
det
er
mi
ne
det
aile
d
str
uct
ure
s of
ato
mic
nuc
lei
by
ana
lyzi
ng
the
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e
and
exc
ited
stat
e
vib
rati
ona
l
ben
ds,
as
obs
erv
ed
exp
eri
me
ntal
ly.
Fro
m
rea
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g
the
ph
ysi
cs
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ure
,
Ph
ysi
cal
Re
vie
w
Let
ters
and
oth
er
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ls,
I
kn
ow
that
ma
ny
ph
ysi
cist
s
are
inte
rest
ed
in
ato
mic
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lei,
but
no
ne
of
the
m,
so
far
as I
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e
bee
n
abl
e to
dis
cov
er,
has
bee
n
atta
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ng
 the
pro
ble
m
in
the
sa
me
wa
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that
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ck
it.
So
I
just
mo
ve
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ng
at
my
ow
n
spe
ed,
ma
kin
g
cal
cul
atio
ns..
.

[edit] Legacy
Pauling died of prostate cancer on August 19, 1994, at 7:20 PM at home in Big Sur, California. He was 93 years
old.[84][85] A grave marker for him is in Oswego Pioneer Cemetery in Lake Oswego, Oregon.[85][86]

Pauling was included in a list of the 20 greatest scientists of all time by the magazine New Scientist, with Albert
Einstein being the only other scientist from the twentieth century on the list. Gautam R. Desiraju, the author of
the Millennium Essay in Nature,[87] claimed that Pauling was one of the greatest thinkers and visionaries of the
millennium, along with Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. Pauling is notable for the diversity of his interests:
quantum mechanics, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, protein structure, molecular biology, and
medicine. In all these fields, and especially on the boundaries between them, he made decisive contributions.
His work on chemical bonding marks the beginning of modern quantum chemistry, and many of his
contributions like hybridization and electronegativity have become part of standard chemistry textbooks. His
valence bond approach fell short of accounting quantitatively for some of the characteristics of molecules, such
as the paramagnetic nature of oxygen and the color of organometallic complexes, and would later be superseded
by the Molecular Orbital Theory of Robert Mulliken. However, the Valence Bond theory still exists in its
modern form and competes with the Molecular Orbital Theory and Density Functional Theory (DFT) for
describing the chemical phenomena.[88] Pauling's work on crystal structure contributed significantly to the
prediction and elucidation of the structures of complex minerals and compounds.[citation needed] His discovery of the
alpha helix and beta sheet is a fundamental foundation for the study of protein structure.[citation needed]

Francis Crick acknowledged Pauling as the "father of molecular biology"[cite this quote]. His discovery of sickle cell
anemia as a "molecular disease" opened the way toward examining genetically acquired mutations at a
molecular level.[citation needed]
Pauling's work on the molecular basis of disease and its treatment is being carried on by a number of
researchers, notably those at the Linus Pauling Institute, which lists a dozen principal investigators and faculty
who study the role of micronutrients and phytochemicals in health and disease.

Items named after Pauling include "Pauling" street located in Foothill Ranch, California (notably once home to
vitamin C/Emergen-C® maker Alacer Corp. Founder Jay Patrick was a friend of Linus Pauling.), Linus and Eva
Helen Pauling Hall at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, California, Linus Pauling Middle School in
Corvallis, Oregon, and Pauling Field a small airfield located in Condon, Oregon. Dr. Pauling spent his youth in
Condon. Additionally, one wing of the Valley Library at Oregon State University bears his name.

Linus Torvalds, developer of the Linux kernel, is named after Pauling.[89]

On March 6, 2008, the United States Postal Service released a 41 cent stamp honoring Pauling.[90] His
description reads: "A remarkably versatile scientist, structural chemist Linus Pauling (1901-1994) won the 1954
Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the nature of the chemical bond linking atoms into molecules. His
work in establishing the field of molecular biology; his studies of hemoglobin led to the classification of sickle
cell anemia as a molecular disease." The other scientists on this sheet include Gerty Cori, biochemist, Edwin
Hubble, astronomer, and John Bardeen, physicist.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008 that
Pauling would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History,
Women and the Arts. The induction ceremony was scheduled to take place December 15, 2008. Pauling's son
was asked to accept the honor in his place.

Pauling appears in the 2006 novel Visibility by Boris Starling, who later named his son Linus.

[edit] Honors and awards

Pauling received numerous awards and honors during his career. Following are awards and honors he has
received.

• 1931 Langmuir Prize, American Chemical Society

• 1941 Nichols Medal, New York Section, American Chemical Society
• 1947 Davy Medal, Royal Society
• 1948 United States Presidential Medal for Merit
• 1952 Pasteur Medal, Biochemical Society of France
• 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• 1955 Addis Medal, National Nephrosis Foundation
• 1955 Phillips Memorial Award, American College of Physicians
• 1956 Avogadro Medal, Italian Academy of Science
• 1957 Paul Sabatier Medal
• 1957 Pierre Fermat Medal in Mathematics
• 1957 International Grotius Medal
• 1961 Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association
• 1962 Nobel Peace Prize
• 1965 Republic of Italy
• 1965 Medal, Academy of the Rumanian People's Republic
• 1966 Linus Pauling Medal
• 1966 Silver Medal, Institute of France
• 1966 Supreme Peace Sponsor, World Fellowship of Religion
• 1968 Lenin Peace Prize
• 1972 United States National Medal of Science
• 1972 International Lenin Peace Prize
• 1977 Lomonosov Gold Medal, USSR Academy of Science
• 1979 Medal for Chemical Sciences, National Academy of Science
• 1984 Priestley Medal, American Chemical Society
• 1984 Award for Chemistry, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation
• 1987 Award in Chemical Education, American Chemical Society
• 1989 Vannevar Bush Award, National Science Board
• 1990 Richard C. Tolman Medal, Southern California, Section, American Chemical Society
• 2008 "American Scientists" US stamp series, $0.41, for his sickle cell disease work
[edit] Publications
• Pauling, L. The Nature of the Chemical Bond. Cornell University Press ISBN 0-8014-0333-2
o Manuscript notes and typescripts (clear images)
• Pauling, L., and Wilson, E. B. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry
(Dover Publications) ISBN 0-486-64871-0
• Pauling, L. Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu (W.H. Freeman and Company) ISBN 0-7167-
0360-2
• Cameron E. and Pauling, L. Cancer and Vitamin C: A Discussion of the Nature, Causes, Prevention,
and Treatment of Cancer With Special Reference to the Value of Vitamin C (Camino Books) ISBN 0-
940159-21-X
• Pauling, L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better (Avon Books) ISBN 0-380-70289-4
• Pauling, L. Linus Pauling On Peace - A Scientist Speaks Out on Humanism and World Survival (Rising
Star Press) ISBN 0-933670-03-6
• Pauling, L. General Chemistry (Dover Publications) ISBN 0-486-65622-5
• A Lifelong Quest for Peace with Daisaku Ikeda
• Pauling, L. The Architecture of Molecules
• Pauling, L. No More War!

Linus Pauling Biography

When Linus Pauling died on Aug. 19, 1994, the world lost one of its greatest scientists and humanitarians and a
much respected and beloved defender of civil liberties and health issues.

Because of his dynamic personality and his many accomplishments in widely diverse fields, it is hard to define
Linus Pauling adequately. A remarkable man who insistently addressed certain crucial human problems while
pursuing an amazing array of scientific interests, Dr. Pauling was almost as well known to the American public
as he was to the world's scientific community. He is the only person ever to receive two unshared Nobel Prizes
— for Chemistry (1954) and for Peace (1962).

In addition to the general recognition as one of the two greatest scientists of the 20th century, he was usually
acknowledged by his colleagues as the most influential chemist since Lavoisier, the 18th-century founder of the
modern science of chemistry. His introductory textbook General Chemistry, revised three times since its first
printing in 1947 and translated into 13 languages, has been used by generations of undergraduates. After
Pauling entered the field of chemistry as a professional in the mid-1920s, his work, grounded in physics, has
affected the work of every chemist. He is also often considered the founding father of molecular biology, which
has transformed the biological sciences and medicine and provided the base for biotechnology.

A multifaceted genius with a zest for communication, Linus Pauling for years was probably the most visible,
vocal, and accessible American scientist. A black beret worn over a shock of curly white hair became his
trademark, along with a pair of lively blue eyes that conveyed his intense interest in challenging topics. He was
a master at explaining difficult, even abstruse, medical and scientific information in terms understandable to
intelligent lay persons. He wrote numerous articles and books for the general public — on science, peace, and
health. Popular books in which Linus Pauling detailed his nutritional recommendations are Vitamin C and the
Common Cold, Cancer and Vitamin C (with Ewan Cameron, M.D.), and How to Live Longer and Feel Better.
He was perennially sought as a speaker for conferences, political rallies, commencements, and media programs.

At the same time, Linus Pauling produced a multitude of scholarly scientific papers on an astounding variety of
subjects in numerous research fields. Of the over 1,000 articles and books he published as sole or joint author,
about two-thirds are on scientific subjects. His landmark book The Nature of the Chemical Bond is frequently
cited as the most influential scientific book of the 20th century.

Linus Pauling was never reluctant to inspire or enter into controversy by expressing unorthodox scientific ideas,
taking a strong moral position, or rousing the public to some worthy cause. He often provoked the scientific,
medical, and political communities with his imaginative scientific hypotheses and strong social activism. He
took professional and personal risks that most of his colleagues avoided. Steadfast and stubborn, yet rarely
losing his cheerful equilibrium, he continued on his chosen and sometimes solitary path as a visionary of
science and a prophet of humanity.

To give one example of his committed yet free-spirited nature: In 1962, during the Kennedy administration, the
Paulings were invited to a special party at the White House honoring Nobel laureates. Dr. Pauling spent the day
outside the gates carrying a placard that protested atmospheric nuclear testing. Then that evening, he and his
wife sat down to an elegant dinner with the Kennedys. And when some lively music was played, the couple felt
inspired to get up and dance — to the delight of onlookers.

Important discoveries

Over the seven decades of his scientific career, Pauling's research interests were amazingly wide-ranging and
eclectic. He made important discoveries in many different fields of chemistry — physical, structural, analytical,
inorganic, and organic chemistry, as well as biochemistry. He used theoretical physics, notably quantum theory
and quantum mechanics, in his investigations of atomic and molecular structure and chemical bonding. He
ventured into metallurgy and mineralogy through the study of atomic structures and bonding of metals and
minerals and, with his colleagues, published the structures of hundreds of inorganic substances, including topaz
and mica. In both theoretical and applied medicine he made important discoveries in genetic diseases,
hematology, immunology, brain function and psychiatry, molecular evolution, nutritional therapy, diagnostic
technology, statistical epidemiology, and biomedicine.

Much of Pauling's lifework combined the dedication and knowledge of the scientist with a deep commitment to
humanitarianism that espoused his own operating ethical principle of the "minimization of suffering."

The early years

Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 28, 1901. He received his early education in
Oregon, finishing in 1922 with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Oregon Agricultural College
in Corvallis — now Oregon State University. Already he was drawn to the challenge of how and why particular
atoms form bonds with each other to create molecules with unique structures.

For postgraduate study Pauling went to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), which provided a
stipend for research and teaching. In 1925 he received a Ph.D. in chemistry and mathematical physics. Awarded
a Guggenheim Fellowship, in 1926-27 he studied in Europe with physicists who were exploring the
implications of quantum mechanics for atomic structure. In this revolutionary new field Pauling found a
physical and mathematical framework for his own future theories regarding molecular structure and its
correlation with chemical properties and function.

“Pauling's Rules”

After Linus Pauling joined the Caltech faculty in the autumn of 1927, he continued his intensive research on the
formation of chemical bonds between atoms in molecules and crystals. To chart bond angles and distances
characteristic of particular atoms in relation to other atoms, he used x-ray diffraction (learned earlier as a
graduate student) — supplemented after 1930 by electron diffraction, an even newer technique that he brought
to the U.S. from Europe. Quantum mechanics enabled Pauling to explain the bonding phenomenon theoretically
in a far more satisfactory way than before. He began to formulate generalizations regarding the atomic
arrangements in crystals with ionic bonding, in which negatively charged electrons, orbiting around the
positively charged nucleus, are transferred from one atom to another. “Pauling's Rules” proved of great value in
deciphering and interpreting ionic structures, particularly the complex ones of many silicate minerals.

Electronegativity, hybridization, and resonance

Pauling discovered that in many cases the type of bonding — whether ionic or covalent (formed by a sharing of
electrons between bonded atoms) — could be determined from a substance's magnetic properties. He also
established an electronegativity scale of the elements for use in bonds of an intermediate character (having both
ionic and covalent bonding); the smaller the difference in electronegativity between two atoms, the more the
bond between them approaches a purely covalent bond. To explain covalent bonding, Pauling introduced two
major new concepts, based on quantum mechanics: bond-orbital hybridization and bond resonance.

Hybridization reorganizes an atom's electron cloud so that some electrons assume positions favorable for
bonding. Since the carbon atom can form four bonds, tetrahedrally arranged — a central structural feature of
organic chemistry — Pauling's explanation of it and of many related features of covalent bonding attracted
attention from chemists around the world. Resonance is a rapid jumping of electrons back and forth between
two or more possible positions in a bond network. Resonance makes a major contribution to the structural
geometry and stability of many substances, such as benzene or graphite, for which a static, non-resonating bond
system would be inadequate. Pauling later extended his bond resonance concept to a theory of bonding in
metals and intermetalic compounds.

Pauling's innovative concepts, published beginning in the late 1920s, together with numerous examples of their
application to particular chemical compounds or compound groups gave chemists fundamental principles to
apply to the growing body of chemical knowledge. They could also accurately predict new compounds and
chemical reactions on a theoretical basis that was far more satisfactory than the straight empiricism of pre-
Pauling chemistry.

The definitive book

In 1939 Pauling brought together his work on these subjects in his definitive book The Nature of the Chemical
Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals, which became a classic and was translated into many
languages. Its third edition appeared in 1960 and has remained in print to this day. The original handwritten
manuscript was given by a former student of Pauling's to the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine
and is now part of the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers in the Valley Library at Oregon State University.

Pauling's interest in molecular structure continued throughout his long career, and the theoretical calculations
involved meant utter happiness to him. He used what he called the "stochastic method," which drew upon his
own encyclopedic knowledge and formidable memory and allowed him to postulate a likely molecular
structure, based on reasoning and theoretical calculation. Detailed laboratory verifications would often be
carried out by associates — as with most of his research projects. Many of his discoveries and inventions were
then expanded upon and utilized profitably in industry by others. And though in later years he was primarily
involved in biomedical research, his curiosity often impelled him to identify the intricate structures of many
clay minerals, transition metals, intermetallic compounds, and other substances. In 1992 he was awarded one of
his last patents for a novel technique of fabricating superconductive materials.
Teaching freshman chemistry

In the early 1930s Pauling took over the teaching of freshman chemistry at Caltech. His modern theoretical
approach to chemistry, charismatic lecturing style, and energetic showmanship (the laboratory demonstrations
occasionally become pyrotechnical displays) made him a very popular professor. He also told students about his
current research, giving them insight into the professional chemist's work. In 1947 he put his new approach to
chemical education into General Chemistry, a textbook that greatly influenced the teaching of chemistry
worldwide by redirecting it from its traditional, purely empirical basis into the new "chemical bond approach."

Physiology and health

Pauling's involvement with human physiology and health, which dominated the last three decades of his
research career, had long precedents. During the mid-1930s a significant part of his research, generously funded
by the Rockefeller Foundation, moved into biochemistry — a field he had previously avoided — as he became
increasingly interested in the highly complex molecules within living organisms. Applying techniques used in
earlier diffraction studies to biological compounds, he now sought to understand the structure of proteins.

In 1934 he investigated the magnetic properties of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying molecule in red blood
cells. He then studied the roles of antigens and antibodies in the immune response, one aspect of the important
phenomenon of specificity in biochemical interactions.

In 1940 he made the novel proposal that this specificity is achieved through molecular complementariness,
which he regarded as the secret of life. The concept — involving a "hand-in-glove" fit of one molecule against
or into another molecule that has a shape complementary to the first — was tested in his laboratory over the
next 10 years by means of numerous serological experiments, yielding results published in no less than 34
scientific papers. In 1946 Pauling postulated that the gene might consist of two mutually complementary strands
— a concept anticipating Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA structure seven years later.

Molecular disease

Pauling originated the concept of molecular disease. In 1945, while hearing a physician describe sickle cell
anemia, he instantly surmised that it might be caused by a defect in the red blood cell's hemoglobin. After three
years of painstaking research, he and his associate Dr. Harvey Itano identified this prevalent disease as
molecular in origin — caused by a genetically transmitted abnormality in the hemoglobin molecule. In
susceptible patients, hemoglobin molecules in venous blood, lacking oxygen, become self-complementary;
distorted and sticking together, they form long rods that interfere with blood circulation.

Pauling's description of this first molecular disease (as he called it) initiated a search for many more such
disorders. The new idea quickly became immensely important in medicine and is now the main focus of human
genome research. Thus the medical specialties of hematology, serology, immunology, applied genetics, and
pathology owe much to Pauling's contributions, which were made long before his intense interest in the promise
of nutritional therapy became widely known.

World War II

When World War II began, Dr. Pauling offered the U.S. government the use of his laboratory and of his
services as a research consultant. He devised some impressive explosives (one called "linusite"!) and missile
propellants for the Navy. He invented a meter that monitored oxygen levels in submarines and airplanes; the
device later provided invaluable in ensuring safe levels of that life-sustaining gas for premature infants in
incubators and for surgery patients under anesthesia.

With an associate, Dr. Pauling originated a synthetic form of blood plasma for use in emergency transfusions in
battlefield clinics. He also took part in a wartime presidential commission formed to recommend future
directions of government-funded scientific and medical research programs. Two major outcomes were the
postwar expansion of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), allowing for extramural research funding, and the
creation of the National Science Foundation. Acknowledging Pauling's patriotic wartime activities, President
Harry Truman in 1948 presented the Presidential Medal for Merit to him "for outstanding services to the United
States from October 1940 to June 1946."

Speaking out

With the war ended, Pauling again focused on his protein-structure studies at Caltech. But he had new
distractions, brought on by the dawning Atomic Age. Along with other eminent scientists (such as Einstein)
who felt a moral imperative to voice concerns about where the post-Hiroshima human society was heading, he
began to speak out against further development, testing, abuse of nuclear arms, as well as against new state-
imposed "loyalty oaths."

During the infamous McCarthy era in the early 1950s, he was treated almost as a traitor. Despite his past
patriotism, for several years he was denied a passport to travel abroad to scientific conferences. The State
Department's reason: "Not in the best interests of the United States." Only in 1954, when Pauling received the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was an unrestricted passport reinstated.

The alpha helix

While a visiting lecturer at Oxford University in 1948, Pauling had a sudden insight regarding the fundamental
structure of proteins, an insight that had eluded him for more than a decade. Working with a sheet of paper that
he folded over at sites where he knew from theoretical considerations that the chain could bend, he found that
the polypeptide chain, formed from sequences of amino acids, would coil into a particular helical structure,
which he named the alpha helix. He based this theoretical configuration on chemical-bonding considerations
plus x-ray diffraction evidence from certain fibrous proteins. This proposal, as well as a companion concept of a
related "pleated sheet" structure, proved correct. Subsequent x-ray diffraction studies have found that the alpha
helix is a major component of both globular and fibrous proteins and extensively controls their structure and
function.

A few years later, in 1953, Watson and Crick proposed that the structure for DNA, the genetic substance of
living things, is a two-stranded double helix, with one strand of the helix complementary to the other. Pauling's
proposals of helical structure and molecular complementariness underlay their theory. (Possibly Pauling, who
also pursued DNA's structure, would have discovered the double helix himself had he attended a 1952 London
conference and seen, as did Watson and Crick, crucial new DNA x-ray diffraction data, but this trip was
prevented by the denial of a passport.) Confirmation and knowledge of the DNA structure immediately
launched the new field of molecular genetics, which has revolutionized virtually all of biology.

Nobel Prize in Chemistry

In 1954 Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
cited his seminal work on the nature of the chemical bond and the structure of molecules and crystals and also
acknowledged his application of the resulting concepts to the elucidation of the structure proteins, specifically
the alpha helix.

Nobel Peace Prize

Pauling put his elevated new position as a Nobel laureate to good effect in his growing social activism. In the
late 1950s and early 1960s he evolved into a fully heroic figure to hundreds of thousands of Americans who
admired the chemist's courageous protest against atmospheric nuclear testing. He maintained, using scientific
data and statistics to make his points, that radioactive fallout would increase the incidence of cancer and genetic
disorders, including birth defects. As international tension and competition between the U.S. and the Soviet
Union accelerated, he also riveted public attention on the buildup and proliferation of nuclear weaponry —
preparations for thermonuclear warfare that he believed would destroy most of the planet's living creatures. He
addressed both issues in his popular book No More War! (1958). He maintained that patient, reasoned
negotiation and diplomacy, using the objectivity and procedures of the scientific method, would settle disputes
in a more lasting, rational, and far more humane way than war. He asked scientists to become peacemakers.

In this most intense phase of the Cold War, Linus Pauling's name was often in the news — as when he
circulated a petition against atmospheric nuclear testing and the excessive buildup of nuclear arsenals. The
petition was presented in early 1958 to the United Nations after being signed by some 9,000 — eventually more
that 11,000-scientists worldwide. The U.S. government's opposing position was defended— sometimes
vituperatively — by most of the press and by various scientists, such as physicist Edward Teller, many of whom
were federal employees.

Pauling's six-year unrelenting antitesting campaign was finally vindicated when a treaty was signed by the then-
three nuclear powers — the U.S., Great Britain, and the U.S.S.R.

On October 10, 1963, the day on which the limited test ban went into effect, it was announced that Linus
Pauling would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962. A key member of the selection committee in
Norway commented later that the treaty would probably not have been effected without Dr. Pauling's
galvanizing impetus. Its timely inception has spared innumerable people from suffering from cancer and genetic
damage. Linus Pauling was greatly admired and is still much appreciated for his courageous public stand by
many people who lived through those years. Today, of course, preventing nuclear warfare and fallout from
above-ground weapons testing, as well as curbing the proliferation of nuclear arms, is the position accepted by
most people worldwide.

Peace activist

Pauling believed that the creation of nuclear weapons meant that war must be abolished and the reign of world
law instituted. Seeking the means to achieve durable, equitable peace in the nuclear age through rational
dialogue, he originated and participated with other renowned scientists in a series of international Pugwash
Conferences, which included Soviet representatives. For almost a decade, in the role of an elder statesman for
peace, he protested adamantly against U.S. military action in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. He also
criticized the U.S. for interfering in Latin American nations, as in Cuba and Nicaragua, and or waging war with
Iraq in the Persian Gulf instead of using economic sanctions and negotiation. Decrying the strife within the
former Yugoslavia, in 1991 he wrote "An Appeal for Peace in Croatia" and signed other international petitions
that cited gross human-rights violations.

Pauling often urged scientists to get involved in politics and society: "It is sometimes said that science has
nothing to do with morality. This is wrong. Science is the search for truth, the effort to understand the world; it
involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality... One way in which
scientists work is by observing the world, making note of phenomena, and analyzing them."

In 1964 Linus Pauling left his tenured professorship at Caltech because of pressure from administrators and
conservative trustees who disapproved of his prominent, persistent antinuclear and international peace-
promoting activities. Pauling had been at the Institute for 42 years — first as a graduate student, then as a
faculty member. (In 1937 he was appointed Chairman of its Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
and Director of the Gates and Crellin Laboratories — positions that he had abdicated in 1958 under
administrative pressure.)

Pursuing humanitarian issues

Leaving Pasadena for Santa Barbara, Pauling became a founding fellow of the Center for the Study of
Democratic Institutions, which enabled him to pursue humanitarian issues, particularly the use of scientific
thinking in solving problems in modern society. Later he held professorships in chemistry at the University of
California, San Diego (1967-69), and at Stanford University (1969-73).

In the mid-1950s Pauling extended his earlier interest in human physiology into studying the mental and
somatic health of groups and individuals. Health statistics, which he had begun to use with his nuclear-hazard
studies and antinuclear proselytizing, now became an epidemiological tool. For instance, he demonstrated
statistically that smoking was a major threat to health, decreasing the average life span by eight years, well
before the medical establishment began issuing strong warnings. He also studied other factors involved in
longevity.

Orthomolecular medicine

Pauling had spoken about the importance of vitamins in the late 1930s. In the mid-1960s he became intrigued
with the biochemistry of nutrition. Its roots were in the research he had done at Caltech on the mechanism of
action of anesthetic agents in the brain and in exploring the possibility that mental retardation and mental illness
(especially schizophrenia) were caused by various biochemical and genetic disorders. This work in brain-fluid
chemistry — studying the molecular environment of the mind — later led to collaborative clinical research with
Dr. Abram Hoffer on the therapeutic efficacy of vitamins in cancer. In founding the new field of orthomolecular
psychiatry ("Orthomolecular Psychiatry" Science 160:265-271, 1968), Pauling proposed that mental
abnormalities might be successfully treated by correcting imbalances or deficiencies among naturally occurring
biochemical constituents of the brain, notably vitamins and other micronutrients, as an alternative to the
administration of potent synthetic psychoactive drugs.

Pauling later broadened this concept into orthomolecular medicine. The concept and term (meaning "right
molecules in the right concentration") characterized an approach to the prevention and treatment of disease and
attainment of optimum health that was based on the physiological and enzymatic actions of specific nutrients,
such as vitamins, minerals, and amino acids present in the body.

Vitamin C

Fascinated with the multifaceted role of vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in maintaining health, he began combing the
scientific and medical literature for experimental and clinical evidence as to its importance. From published
studies, from physiological and evolutionary reasoning, and from his and his wife's own experiences, he became
convinced of the value of vitamin C in large doses as a prophylactic or palliative for the common cold. In 1970
he wrote the book Vitamin C and the Common Cold, which became a bestseller and brought wide public
attention while creating a huge and continuously increasing demand for this micronutrient.

Later he became convinced of ascorbate's value in combating the flu, cancer, cardiovascular disease, infections,
and degenerative problems in the aging process. He added other micronutrients, such as vitamin E and the B
vitamins, to his list of helpful supplements and published two other popular books and a number of papers, both
scientific and popular, on nutritional therapy. As happened during his earlier efforts in awakening the public to
the dangers of nuclear weapons, Pauling's pronouncements on the subject of nutritional medicine were often
assailed by physicians and physicians' organizations that ignored his long and insightful involvement with the
biochemistry of human health and much of the published studies. They often dismissed his ideas as quackery.

The LPI

After retiring to the status of Professor Emeritus at Stanford in 1973, Pauling co-founded the nonprofit
biomedical research organization that now bears his name. The Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine
was established primarily to conduct research and education in orthomolecular medicine, following his belief
that nutrition could prevent, ameliorate or cure many diseases, slow the aging process, and alleviate suffering.

At LPI Pauling and his staff worked on developing diagnostic tests and tools for analyzing a multitude of
compounds found in bodily fluids. In his view, biochemical individuality — involving unique dietary needs
specific to individuals — determines how optimum health can be achieved through the judicious use of natural
substances. He maintained that biochemical individuality, molecular disease, or environmental stress may
increase the need for certain micronutrients, such as vitamin C, considerably above the RDA. He also warned
against overuse of such substances as sugar and chemical sweeteners. Unlike many advocates in the field of
nutritional medicine, he considered orthomolecular medicine a crucial adjunct to standard medical practice and
therefore did not rule out conventional treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, when
considered appropriate.
As a prominent, knowledgeable, and articulate spokesman for the use of nutrients as means to achieve health,
prolong life, and provide inexpensive, readily available, and nontoxic alternatives to drugs, Pauling gained a
large number of ardent admirers among the public. There were also doubters and detractors. To the attacks from
physicians and other authorities in medicine who through the years dismissed or ridiculed his assertions,
Pauling responded with cogent research data and logical reasoning. As happened earlier with his outspoken
antinuclear and peace activism, and even to some extent with his original work on the nature of the chemical
bond, assaults from critics did not stop Pauling from maintaining his position, and he was often regarded as a
besieged hero. He utilized the media's ongoing interest in him to good effect in promoting his "regimen for
better health," with vitamin C as its keystone. Doubtless the public today knows Dr. Linus Pauling more for his
advocacy of vitamin C and orthomolecular medicine than for his work on the chemical bond or for world peace.

The final years

In the last few years of his life, Pauling cut down on his previously frequent worldwide lecturing and associated
travel. He largely divided his time between his coastal ranch, where he did theoretical work and wrote for
publication, and his apartment at Stanford close to the Linus Pauling Institute, where he served as Director of
Research after resigning from the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees in 1992.

Pauling continued to publish articles about health as well as reminiscences of his career in science and his peace
work. He wrote many scientific papers on orthomolecular medicine and on structural chemistry. The latter
included detailing his unorthodox close-packed polysheron theory of the structure of atomic nuclei and nuclear
fission from a structural chemist's point of view, and an explanation (based on the twinning phenomenon in
crystals) of the baffling "quasicrystal" diffraction patterns from certain alloys, which seem to show a five-fold
symmetry contrary to the laws of classical crystallography. He pursued these subjects nearly to the time of this
death.

In retrospect, the breadth of Pauling's interests and research was enormous and his published work prodigious
— more than 1,065 publications, from scientific and popular books and articles to book forewords and reviews
to letters to editors and printed speeches.

Numerous honors

To Linus Pauling came many honors. In 1933, at the remarkably young age of 32, he was elected to the
prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and in 1936 to the equally prestigious American Philosophical
Society. In 1948 he became a foreign member of The Royal Society of London, the premier honorary scientific
society of Great Britain. Many other scientific societies and associations throughout the world made him a
member or honorary member. In chemistry, in addition to the Nobel Prize (1954), Pauling was given numerous
awards, including the Davy, Pasteur, Willard Gibbs, T.W. Richards, G.N. Lewis, Priestley, Avogadro, and
Lomonosov medals. He was the first recipient of the National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical
Sciences, in 1979. The National Library of Medicine gave him its Sesquicentennial Commemorative Award in
1986; he was given other notable medical awards, such as the Addis, Phillips, Virchow, Lattimer, and the
French Academy of Medicine medals. He received the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Achievement Award for
his pioneering work in determining the cause of sickle cell anemia — the molecular disease prevalent among
African-Americans.

President Ford awarded him the National Medal of Science in 1975, and in 1989 the National Science Board
presented him with the Vannevar Bush Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science,
technology, and society. He also received prominent medals and awards in mineralogy, international law,
philosophy, and the social sciences. Among the humanitarian awards Pauling won, the most notable, of course,
was the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962; he was also given the Gandhi and Lenin peace prizes and the Albert
Schweitzer Peace medal. Pauling was named Humanist of the Year in 1961. Pauling also received the Gold
Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences. In addition, Pauling was awarded honorary degrees by some
50 universities and colleges throughout the world. Several universities have created their own Linus Pauling
Lectureship or Medal, to honor other scientists or humanitarians in his name.

Nine biographies and three anthologies of his writings and speeches have been published thus far, and a two-
volume collection of many of his most important scientific publications was published in 2002.
Personal life

Linus Pauling always emphasized the importance of having a full and happy personal life. In 1923 he married
Ava Helen Miller, who had been a student in a chemistry course he taught while still an undergraduate at
Oregon Agricultural College. Dr. Pauling frequently credited his wife with influencing the development of his
social consciousness. She was greatly involved in peace activities, both with her husband and on her own.
Pauling said that his Nobel Peace Prize should really have gone to her, or at least been shared between them. In
his talks and informal writings he often spoke both tenderly and humorously of their complementary
partnership. She died in 1981. In tribute to her dedication to world peace, the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling
Lectureship in World Peace has been established by the Paulings' alma mater, Oregon State University in
Corvallis, where the Paulings' papers, medals, and other memorabilia are housed in Special Collections at the
Valley Library. Additionally, the Linus Pauling Institute established the endowed Ava Helen Pauling Chair in
2001 to honor Ava Helen Pauling's memory.

The Paulings had four children. Linus Pauling, Jr., M.D., a psychiatrist, lives in Honolulu. Peter Pauling, Ph.D.,
a crystallographer and retired lecturer in chemistry, resided in Wales until his death in 2003. Linda Pauling
Kamb lives with her husband, a Caltech professor of geology, in the home originally built by her parents in the
foothills above Pasadena. Crellin Pauling, Ph.D., was a professor of biology at San Francisco State University
until his death in 1997. There are 15 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

Following Pauling's death at the age of 93 at his ranch near Big Sur on the California coast, a memorial service
was held at Stanford Memorial Church in Palo Alto on Aug. 29

LPI moves to OSU

The assets of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine were used to establish the Linus Pauling
Institute as a research institute at OSU in 1996 to investigate the function and role of micronutrients,
phytochemicals and microconstituents of food in maintaining human health and preventing and treating disease;
and to advance the knowledge in areas which were of interest to Linus Pauling through research and education.
LPI continues to function as a working tribute to a great scientist, Linus Pauling.

For more information, please contact the Linus Pauling Institute at 541-737-5075 or email us at the address
below.

Linus Carl Pauling: A Biographical Timeline

An earlier version of this short biography was prepared by Barbara Marinacci and published in "Linus Pauling
— In Memoriam" (Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine, 1994, ©LPISM).

Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American physical chemist, widely
regarded as the premier chemist of the twentieth century. Pauling was a pioneer in the application of quantum
mechanics to chemistry, and in 1954 was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work describing the
nature of chemical bonds. He also made important contributions to crystal and protein structure
determination, and was one of the founders of molecular biology. Pauling received the Nobel Peace Prize in
1962 for his campaign against above-ground nuclear testing, becoming the only person in history to
individually receive two Nobel Prizes (Marie Curie won Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, but shared
the former and won the latter individually; John Bardeen won two Nobel Prizes, but both were in the field of
physics, and both were shared; Frederick Sanger won two Nobel Prizes in chemistry, but one was shared).
Later in life, he became an advocate for regular consumption of massive doses of Vitamin C, a regimen now
regarded as medically unorthodox.

Early life
Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon. His father, an unsuccessful druggist, moved his family to a number of
different cities in Oregon from 1903 to 1909, finally returning to Portland that year. When the elder Pauling
died in 1910 of a perforated ulcer, Linus' mother was left to care for him and two younger siblings.

Related Topics:
Portland - Oregon - Druggist - 1903 - 1909 - 1910 - Ulcer

~~~~~~~~~~

Pauling was a voracious reader as a child, and at one point his father wrote a letter to a local paper inviting
suggestions of additional books that would occupy his time. A friend, Lloyd Jeffress, had a small chemistry
laboratory in his bedroom when Pauling was in grammar school, and Jeffress' laboratory experiments inspired
Pauling to plan to become a chemical engineer.

Related Topics:
Grammar school - Chemical engineer

~~~~~~~~~~

In high school, Pauling continued to experiment in chemistry, borrowing much of the equipment and materials
from an abandoned steel company near which his grandfather worked as a night watchman.

Related Topics:
High school - Steel

~~~~~~~~~~

Pauling failed to take some required American history courses and did not qualify for his high school diploma.
The school awarded him the diploma 45 years later, only after he had won two Nobel Prizes.

~~~~~~~~~~

◄ Linus Pauling: Introduction

Linus Pauling: College and university

College and university

In 1917, Pauling entered the Oregon Agricultural College (OAC) in Corvallis, now Oregon State University.
Because of financial needs, he had to work full-time while attending a full schedule of classes. After his second
year, he planned to take a job in Portland to help support his mother, but the college offered him a position
teaching quantitative analysis (a course Pauling had just finished taking as a student). This allowed him to
continue his studies at OAC.

Related Topics:
1917 - Corvallis - Oregon State University - Quantitative analysis

~~~~~~~~~~
In his last two years at OAC, Pauling became aware of the work of Gilbert N. Lewis and Irving Langmuir on
the electronic structure of atoms and their bonding to form molecules. He decided to focus his research on
how the physical and chemical properties of substances are related to the structure of the atoms of which they
are composed, becoming one of the founders of the new science of quantum chemistry.

Related Topics:
Gilbert N. Lewis - Irving Langmuir - Electronic structure - Atom - Bonding - Molecule - Physical - Chemical
properties - Quantum chemistry

~~~~~~~~~~

In his senior year he met Ava Helen Miller, a fellow student, and he married her on June 17, 1923; they had
three sons and a daughter.

Related Topics:
June 17 - 1923

~~~~~~~~~~

In 1922, Pauling graduated from OAC and went to graduate school at the California Institute of Technology
("Caltech") in Pasadena, California. His graduate research involved the use of X-ray diffraction to determine
crystal structure. He published seven papers on the crystal structure of minerals while he was at Caltech. He
received his Ph. D. degree, summa cum laude, in 1925.

Related Topics:
1922 - California Institute of Technology - Pasadena, California - X-ray diffraction - Crystal - Mineral - Ph. D. -
Summa cum laude - 1925

Early scientific career

Pauling later traveled to Europe on a Guggenheim Fellowship to study under Arnold Sommerfeld in
Munich, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, and Erwin Schrödinger in Zürich. All three were working in the new
field of quantum mechanics. While he was studying at OAC, Pauling was first exposed to the idea of
quantum mechanics. He became interested in seeing how it might help in the understanding of his chosen field
of interest, the electronic structure of atoms and molecules. In Europe, Pauling was also exposed to one of
the first quantum mechanical analyses of bonding in the hydrogen molecule, done by Walter Heitler and Fritz
London. Pauling devoted the two years of his European trip to this work and decided to make this the focus of
his future research. He became one of the first scientists in the field of quantum chemistry and a pioneer in the
application of quantum theory to the structure of molecules. In 1927, he took a new position as an assistant
professor at Caltech in theoretical chemistry.

Related Topics:
Europe - Guggenheim Fellowship - Arnold Sommerfeld - Munich - Niels Bohr - Copenhagen - Erwin
Schrödinger - Zürich - Quantum mechanics - Electronic structure - Atom - Molecule - Hydrogen - Walter
Heitler - Fritz London - Quantum chemistry - 1927 - Professor - Theoretical chemistry

~~~~~~~~~~

Pauling began his faculty career at Caltech with a very productive five years, both continuing with his X-ray
crystal studies and performing quantum mechanical calculations on atoms and molecules. He published
approximately fifty papers in those five years. In 1929, he was promoted to associate professor, and in 1930, to
full professor. By 1931, the American Chemical Society awarded Pauling the Langmuir Prize for the most
significant work in pure science by a person 30 years of age or younger. In 1932, Pauling published what he
regarded as his most important paper, in which he first laid out the concept of hybridization of atomic orbitals
and analyzed the tetravalency of the carbon atom.

Related Topics:
X-ray - 1929 - 1930 - 1931 - American Chemical Society - Langmuir Prize - 1932 - Hybridization
~~~~~~~~~~

At Caltech, Pauling struck a close friendship with Robert Oppenheimer, who was spending part of his
research and teaching schedule away from Berkeley at Caltech every year. The two men planned to mount a
joint attack on the nature of the chemical bond; apparently Oppenheimer would supply the mathematics and
Pauling would interpret the results. However, this relationship soured when Pauling began to suspect that
Oppenheimer was probably becoming too close to Pauling's wife, Ava Helen. Once, when Pauling was at work,
Oppenheimer had come to their place and blurted out an invitation to Ava Helen to join him on a tryst to
Mexico. Although she flatly refused, she reported this incident to Pauling. This, and her apparent nonchalance
about the incident, disquieted him, and he immediately cut off his relationship with the Berkeley professor,
leading to a coolness between them that would last their lives, although Oppenheimer did invite Pauling to be
the head of the Chemistry Division of the atomic bomb project. (Pauling refused, saying that he was a
pacifist).

Related Topics:
Robert Oppenheimer - Mexico - Atomic bomb project - Pacifist

~~~~~~~~~~

In the summer of 1930, Pauling made another European trip, learning about the use of electrons in diffraction
studies similar to the ones he had performed with X-rays. With a student of his, L. O. Brockway, he built an
electron diffraction instrument at Caltech and used it to study the molecular structure of a large number of
chemical substances.

Related Topics:
1930 - Electron - Diffraction

~~~~~~~~~~

Linus Pauling introduced the concept of electronegativity in 1932. Using the various properties of molecules,
such as the energy required to break bonds and the dipole moments of molecules, he established a scale and an
associated numerical value for most of the elements, the Pauling Electronegativity Scale, which is useful in
predicting the nature of bonds between atoms in molecules.

Related Topics:
Electronegativity - Molecule - Dipole - Pauling Electronegativity Scale

Work on the nature of the chemical bond

In the 1930s he began publishing papers on the nature of the chemical bond, leading to his famous textbook on
the subject published in 1939. It is based primarily on his work in this area that he received the Nobel Prize in
Chemistry in 1954 "for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation
of the structure of complex substances". Pauling summarized his work on the chemical bond in The Nature of
the Chemical Bond, a magnum opus which is probably the most influential chemistry book ever published. An
idea of its importance can be gleaned from the fact that in the 30 years since its first edition was published in
1939, the book had been cited more than 16,000 times. Even today, it is remarkable how many modern
scientific papers and articles in important journals cite this work, more than half a century after it was
published.

Related Topics:
1930s - 1939 - Nobel Prize in Chemistry - 1954

~~~~~~~~~~

Part of Pauling's work on the nature of the chemical bond led to his introduction of the concept of orbital
hybridization. While it is normal to think of the electrons in an atom as being described by orbitals of types
such as s, p, etc., it turns out that in describing the bonding in molecules, it is better to construct functions that
partake of some of the properties of each. Thus the one 2s and three 2p orbitals in a carbon atom can be
combined to make four equivalent orbitals (called sp3 hybrid orbitals), which would be the appropriate
orbitals to describe carbon compounds such as methane, or the 2s orbital may be combined with two of the 2p
orbitals to make three equivalent orbitals (called sp2 hybrid orbitals), with the remaining 2p orbital
unhybridized, which would be the appropriate orbitals to describe certain unsaturated carbon compounds
such as ethylene. Other hybridization schemes are also found in other types of molecules.

Another area which he explored was the relationship between ionic bonding, where electrons are transferred
between atoms, and covalent bonding where electrons are shared between atoms on an equal basis. Pauling
showed that these were merely extremes, between which most actual cases of bonding fall. It was here
especially that Pauling's electronegativity concept was particularly useful; the electronegativity difference
between a pair of atoms will be the surest predictor of the degree of ionicity of the bond.

The third of the topics that Pauling attacked under the overall heading of "the nature of the chemical bond" was
the accounting of the structure of aromatic hydrocarbons, particularly the prototype, benzene. The best
description of benzene had been made by the German chemist Friedrich Kekulé. He had treated it as a rapid
interconversion between two structures, each with alternating single and double bonds, but with the double
bonds of one structure in the locations where the single bonds were in the other. Pauling showed that a proper
description based on quantum mechanics was an intermediate structure containing some aspects of each. The
structure was a superposition of structures rather than a rapid interconversion between them. The name
"resonance" was later applied to this phenomenon. In a sense, this phenomenon resembles that of hybridization,
described earlier, because it involves combining more than one electronic structure to achieve an intermediate
result.

Work on biological molecules

In the mid-1930s, Pauling decided to strike out into new areas of interest. Early in his career, he had mentioned
a lack of interest in studying molecules of biological importance. But as Caltech was developing a new strength
in biology, and Pauling interacted with such great biologists as Thomas Hunt Morgan, Theodosius
Dobzhanski, Calvin Bridges, and Alfred Sturtevant, he started to become interested in studying biological
molecules. His first work in this area involved the structure of hemoglobin. He was able to demonstrate that the
hemoglobin molecule changes structure when it gains or loses an oxygen atom. As a result of this observation,
he decided to make a more thorough study of protein structure in general. He returned to his earlier use of X-
ray diffraction analysis. But protein structures were far less amenable to this technique than the crystalline
minerals of his former work. The best X-ray pictures of proteins in the 1930s had been made by the British
crystallographer William Astbury, but when Pauling tried, in 1937, to account for Astbury's observations
quantum mechanically, he could not.

It took eleven years for Pauling to explain the problem: his mathematical analysis was correct, but Astbury's
pictures were taken in such a way that the protein molecules were tilted from their expected positions. Pauling
had formulated a model for the structure of hemoglobin in which atoms were arranged in a helical pattern, and
applied this idea to proteins in general.

In 1951, based on the structures of amino acids and peptides and the planarity of the peptide bond, Pauling and
colleagues correctly proposed the alpha helix and beta sheet as the primary structural motifs in protein
secondary structure. This work exemplified his ability to think unconventionally; central to the structure was
the unorthodox assumption that one turn of the helix may well contain a non-integral number of amino acid
residues.

Pauling then suggested a helical structure for deoxyribonucleic acid DNA but in this structure he
uncharacteristically made several basic mistakes. Sir Lawrence Bragg had been disappointed that Pauling had
won the race to find the alpha helix. Bragg's team had made a fundamental error in making their models of
protein; not recognizing the planar nature of the peptide bond. When it was learned at the Cavendish
Laboratory that Pauling was working on molecular models of the structure of DNA, Watson and Crick were
allowed to make a molecular model of DNA using unpublished data from Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind
Franklin at King's College. Early in 1953 James D. Watson and Francis Crick propose a correct structure for
the DNA double helix. One of the impediments facing Pauling in this work was that he did not have access to
the high quality X-ray diffraction photographs of DNA taken by Rosalind Franklin, which Watson and Crick
had seen. He planned to attend a conference in England, where he might have been shown the photos, but he
could not do so because his passport was withheld at the time by the State Department, on suspicions that he
had Communist sympathies. This was at the start of the McCarthy period in the United States.
Pauling also studied enzyme reactions and was among the first ones to point out that enzymes bring about
reactions by stabilizing the transition state of the reaction, a view which is central to understanding their
mechanism of action. He was also among the first scientists to postulate that the binding of antibodies to
antigens would be due to a complementarity between their structures. Along the same lines, with the physicist
turned biologist Max Delbruck, he wrote an early paper arguing that genetic replication was likely to be due to
complementarity, rather than similarity, as suggested by a few researchers. This was made clear in the model of
the structure of DNA that Watson and Crick discovered.

Related Topics:
Enzyme - Antibodies - Max Delbruck

Activism
Pauling had been practically apolitical until World War II, but the war changed his life profoundly, and he
became a peace activist. During the beginning of the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer invited him to
be in charge of the Chemistry division of the project, but he declined saying that he was a pacifist. In 1946 he
joined the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, chaired by Albert Einstein, whose mission was to
warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons. His political activism
prompted the U.S. State Department to deny him a passport in 1952, when he was invited to speak at a
scientific conference in London. His passport was restored in 1954, shortly before the ceremony in Stockholm
where he received his first Nobel Prize. Joining Einstein, Bertrand Russell and 8 other leading scientists and
intellectuals he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955.

Related Topics:
World War II - Manhattan Project - Robert Oppenheimer - 1946 - Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists -
Albert Einstein - U.S. State Department - Passport - 1952 - London - 1954 - Stockholm - Bertrand Russell -
Russell-Einstein Manifesto - 1955

~~~~~~~~~~

In 1957, Pauling began a petition drive in cooperation with biologist Barry Commoner, who had studied
radioactive strontium-90 in the milk teeth of children across North America and concluded that above-ground
nuclear testing posed public health risks in the form of radioactive fallout. He also participated in a public
debate with the atomic physicist Edward Teller about the actual probability of fallout causing mutations. In
1958, Pauling and his wife presented the United Nations with a petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists
calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing. Public pressure subsequently led to a moratorium on above-
ground nuclear weapons testing, followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty, signed in 1963 by John F.
Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. On the day that the treaty went into force, the Nobel Prize Committee
awarded Pauling the Peace Prize, describing him as "Linus Carl Pauling, who ever since 1946 has campaigned
ceaselessly, not only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only
against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts." Interestingly, the
Caltech Chemistry Department, wary of his political views, did not even formally congratulate him. However,
the Biology Department did throw him a small party, showing they were more appreciative and sympathetic
toward his work on radiation mutation.

~~~~~~~~~~

Many of Pauling's critics, including scientists who appreciated the contributions that he had made in chemistry,
disagreed with his political positions and saw him as a naïve spokesman for Soviet communism. He was
ordered to appear before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which termed him "the number one
scientific name in virtually every major activity of the Communist peace offensive in this country." An
extraordinary headline in Life magazine characterized his 1962 Nobel Prize as "A Weird Insult from Norway."

Work in alternative medicine

Pauling's scientific work in his later years generated controversy and was regarded by many scientists as
outright quackery. In 1966, at the age of 65, he began to champion the ideas of biochemist Irwin Stone, who
proposed that massive doses of Vitamin C could prevent colds. Eventually Pauling went beyond this, to the
idea that Vitamin C could prevent cancer. While most scientists do not believe that there is any validity in
these claims, a few, convinced that this is one of a number of cases where substances naturally in the body can
be used to prevent disease, established a new discipline called orthomolecular medicine.
On Pauling's retirement in 1974, he and some of these scientists founded the Institute of Orthomolecular
Medicine (now the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine) in Palo Alto, California. The Pauling
Institute no longer subscribes to his recommendations for Vitamin C supplementation. Dr. Matthias Rath, one
of Pauling's collaborators from this time, has continued research into the effects of large amounts of Vitamin C
on the human body. One proposal put forward by Rath and Pauling includes the idea that humans naturally have
elevated levels of cholesterol (and atherosclerotic plaque build-up in arteries) to prevent the negative effects of
scurvy (extreme vitamin C deficiency), which would kill them much sooner than cardiovascular disease.

Pauling's legacy
Pauling's contribution to science is held in the utmost regard. He was included in a list of the 20 greatest
scientists of all time by the British magazine New Scientist, with Albert Einstein being the only other scientist
from the twentieth century in the list. Pauling is also notable for the diversity of his interests: quantum
mechanics, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, protein structure, molecular biology, and medicine. In all
these fields, and especially on the boundaries between them, he made decisive contributions. His work on
chemical bonding marks the beginning of modern quantum chemistry, and many of his contributions like
hybridization and electronegativity have become part of standard chemistry textbooks. Although his valence
bond approach fell short of accounting quantitatively for some of the characteristics of molecules, such as the
paramagnetic nature of oxygen and the color of organometallic complexes, and would later be superseded by
the Molecular Orbital Theory of Robert Mulliken, the strength of Pauling's theory has lain in its simplicity,
and it has endured. Pauling's work on crystal structure contributed significantly to the prediction and
elucidation of the structures of complex minerals and compounds. His discovery of the alpha helix and beta
sheet is a fundamental foundation for the study of protein structure.

~~~~~~~~~~

Pauling was also one of the founders of the science of molecular biology in the true sense of the term. His
discovery of sickle cell anemia as a 'molecular disease' opened the way toward examining genetically acquired
mutations at a molecular level.

Works by Linus Pauling

• Pauling, L. The Nature of the Chemical Bond (Cornell University Press) ISBN 0801403332
• Pauling, L., and Wilson, E. B. Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry
(Dover Publications) ISBN 0486648710
• Cameron E. and Pauling, L. Cancer and Vitamin C: A Discussion of the Nature, Causes, Prevention,
and Treatment of Cancer With Special Reference to the Value of Vitamin C (Camino Books) ISBN
094015921X
• Pauling, L. How to Live Longer and Feel Better (Avon Books) ISBN 0380702894
• Pauling, L. Linus Pauling On Peace - A Scientist Speaks Out on Humanism and World Survival (Rising
Star Press) ISBN 0933670036
• Pauling, L. General Chemistry (Dover Publications) ISBN 0486656225
Linus Carl Pauling biography
Linus Carl Pauling biography gives details about this genius won two Nobel
Prizes. Learn why this man was one of the greatest accomplished geiuses
of our time...

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Wi
del
y
ack
no
wle
dge
d
as
one
of
the
gre
ate
st
sci
enti
sts
eve
r,
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
wa
s
nev
ert
hel
ess
a
ver
y
con
tro
ver
sial
and
out
spo
ken
per
son
. In
fact
it
wa
s
this
ver
y
fac
et
of
his
per
son
alit
y
that
ear
ned
hi
m
the
No
bel
Pea
ce
Pri
ze,
for
his
sta
nce
aga
inst
nuc
lear
we
apo
ns.
Du
e to
his
fort
hri
ght
nat
ure
, he
wa
s
lab
elle
da
co
m
mu
nist
,
for
ced
to
def
end
hi
ms
elf
bef
ore
tw
o
Co
ngr
essi
ona
l
Co
m
mit
tee
s,
ris
ked
his
job
,
and
eve
n
had
his
pas
spo
rt
rev
oke
d,
so
that
he
cou
ld
not
tra
vel
abr
oad
.

Lin
us
Car
l
Pa
uli
ng
wa
s
bor
n
on
28t
h
Fe
bru
ary
19
01,
and
his
fat
her
die
d
wh
en
he
wa
s
nin
e
yea
rs
old
,
for
cin
g
hi
m
to
tak
e
up
od
d
job
s to
sup
por
t
his
mo
the
r,
sist
ers,
as
wel
l as
pay
for
his
edu
cati
on.
Ev
en
at
this
earl
y
age
the
con
tro
ver
sial
sid
e
of
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng'
s
nat
ure
sho
we
d
up,
wh
en
he
ref
use
d
to
tak
ea
cla
ss
in
civi
cs
wh
ich
wa
s
nee
ded
in
ord
er
to
obt
ain
a
Hi
gh
Sc
ho
ol
Di
plo
ma,
con
ten
din
g
that
he
had
alre
ady
rea
d
up
abo
ut
civi
cs.
He
wa
s
fin
ally
aw
ard
ed
the
dip
lo
ma
afte
r
he
rec
eiv
ed
his
sec
on
d
No
bel
Pri
ze,
the
19
62
Pea
ce
Aw
ard
,
and
the
aut
hor
itie
s
fin
ally
acc
ept
ed
his
vie
wp
oin
t.

Ha
vin
g
obt
ain
ed
his
bac
hel
or's
deg
ree
in
Ch
emi
cal
En
gin
eeri
ng
fro
m
the
Ore
go
n
Ag
ric
ult
ura
l
Col
leg
e,
he
joi
ned
the
Cal
ifor
nia
Ins
titu
te
of
Tec
hn
olo
gy,
to
co
mp
lete
his
Ph
D
in
Ch
emi
str
y.
He
beg
an
wo
rki
ng
on
cry
stal
s,
and
wa
s
crit
icis
ed
by
ma
ny
for
dec
idi
ng
on
wh
at
the
str
uct
ure
wa
s
and
the
n
fitti
ng
the
dat
a in
to
suit
his
fin
din
gs.
Thi
s
int
uiti
ve
app
roa
ch
to
res
ear
ch
wa
s
not
app
reci
ate
d
as
thr
ou
gh
out
his
car
eer,
Pa
uli
ng
wo
uld
fre
que
ntl
y
rea
ch
his
con
clu
sio
ns
wit
ho
ut
suf
fici
ent
dat
a.

Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
ma
rrie
d
Av
a
Hel
en
Mil
ler
on
17t
h
Jun
e
19
23,
and
this
wa
s
the
beg
inn
ing
of
a
rela
tio
nsh
ip
wh
ich
the
y
sha
red
rig
ht
till
her
dea
th,
wit
h
Av
a
Hel
en
par
tici
pati
ng,
and
sup
por
tin
g
hi
m
in
his
wo
rk,
and
his
eff
ort
s
for
wo
rld
pea
ce.

In
19
26,
Pa
uli
ng
visi
ted
Ger
ma
ny
and
wo
rke
d
on
qua
ntu
m
me
cha
nic
s,
and
so
me
of
his
wo
rk
led
to a
qua
rrel
wit
h
W.
L.
Bra
gg.
It
wa
s
Bra
gg'
s
con
tent
ion
that
Pa
uli
ng
use
d
so
me
of
his
ow
n
ide
as
wit
ho
ut
giv
ing
hi
m
due
cre
dit.

He
ret
urn
ed
to
Cal
Tec
h
wh
ere
he
did
ext
ens
ive
stu
die
s
on
the
che
mic
al
bo
nd,
and
stu
die
d
hae
mo
glo
bin
and
pro
tein
s.
For
a
lon
g
tim
e
he
atte
mp
ted
to
dev
elo
pa
gen
eral
the
ory
of
pro
tein
str
uct
ure
,
but
wa
s
uns
ucc
ess
ful
as
his
mo
del
s
did
not
mat
ch
the
x-
ray
dat
a
ava
ilab
le.
Fin
ally
in
19
48,
wh
ile
ill
and
con
fin
ed
to
bed
, he
beg
an
to
dra
w
the
ato
ms
and
bo
nds
on
a
pap
er,
wh
ich
he
fol
ded
rep
eat
edl
y,
and
thu
s
dis
cov
ere
d
the
alp
ha
heli
x
str
uct
ure
for
pro
tein
s.

Du
rin
g
the
Sec
on
d
Wo
rld
Wa
r,
Pa
uli
ng
tur
ned
do
wn
an
op
por
tun
ity
to
wo
rk
on
the
Ma
nha
ttan
Pro
ject
wh
ich
wa
s
set
up
to
dev
elo
p
the
ato
m
bo
mb
s
wh
ich
wer
e
dro
ppe
d
on
Hir
osh
ima
and
Na
gas
aki.
Ins
tea
d
he
cho
se
to
wo
rk
on
dev
elo
pm
ent
of
roc
ket
pro
pell
ant
s,
syn
thet
ic
qua
rtz,
and
arti
fici
al
blo
od
ser
um
.
For
his
wo
rk
on
the
se
war
rela
ted
pro
ject
s,
he
rec
eiv
ed
the
Pre
sid
enti
al
Me
dal
for
Me
rit
fro
m
Pre
sid
ent
Tru
ma
n.

Alt
ho
ug
h
his
sci
enti
fic
ach
iev
em
ent
s
wer
e
kn
ow
n
wo
rld-
wi
de,
his
out
spo
ken
nat
ure
ma
de
the
anti
-
Co
m
mu
nist
s
vie
we
d
hi
m
wit
h
sus
pici
on.
Th
e
for
ced
inte
rn
me
nt
of
Jap
ane
se-
A
me
rica
ns
wa
s
vig
oro
usl
y
op
pos
ed
by
Pa
uli
ng,
wh
o
spo
ke
abo
ut
the
dan
ger
s of
ato
mic
we
apo
ns
and
rad
iati
on.
Alt
ho
ug
h
the
At
om
ic
En
erg
y
Co
m
mis
sio
n
clai
me
d
that
the
re
wa
s
no
dan
ger
fro
m
rad
iati
on,
Pa
uli
ng
use
d
sim
ple,
lay
ma
n
ter
ms,
and
fact
s
and
fig
ure
s
pro
vid
ed
by
the
AE
C
the
ms
elv
es,
to
sho
w
that
the
lev
els
of
rad
iati
on
cau
sed
by
the
sch
edu
led
we
apo
ns
test
s
wo
uld
cau
se
chil
dre
n
to
be
bor
n
wit
h
ph
ysi
cal
and
me
ntal
def
ect
s,
mis
car
ria
ges
,
stil
l
birt
hs
and
inc
rea
ses
in
can
cer.
He
joi
ned
the
Sci
enti
st's
Mo
ve
me
nt,
wh
ich
wa
sa
nati
on-
wi
de
gro
up
of
sci
enti
sts,
wh
o
wis
hed
to
hav
e
ade
qua
te
con
trol
s to
ens
ure
the
saf
e
use
of
nuc
lear
po
wer
.
Av
a
Hel
en,
me
an
wh
ile,
joi
ned
the
Wo
me
n's
Int
ern
atio
nal
Lea
gue
for
Pea
ce
and
Fre
edo
m,
and
wa
s
an
ard
ent
pro
po
nen
t of
wo
rld
pea
ce,
hu
ma
n
rig
hts
and
the
wo
rld
wi
de
ban
nin
g
of
nuc
lear
test
ing
.

Th
ese
acti
viti
es
ca
me
to
the
atte
nti
on
of
the
go
ver
nm
ent,
and
in
No
ve
mb
er
19
50,
Pa
uli
ng
wa
s
for
ced
to
def
end
his
vie
ws
bef
ore
a
Se
nat
e
Co
m
mit
tee,
and
eff
ort
s
wer
e
ma
de
to
re
mo
ve
hi
m
fro
m
his
job
at
Cal
Tec
h.
Th
e
har
ass
me
nt
fro
m
the
go
ver
nm
ent
con
tin
ued
,
wh
en
in
Jan
uar
y
19
52
he
wa
s
ref
use
da
pas
spo
rt
wh
ich
he
nee
ded
to
atte
nd
a
con
fer
enc
e to
def
end
his
sci
enti
fic
fin
din
gs
rela
ted
to
the
str
uct
ure
of
pro
tein
s.
De
spit
e
his
str
on
g
ass
erti
on
that
he
wa
sa
pat
riot
ic
A
me
rica
n
and
not
a
co
m
mu
nist
sy
mp
athi
ser,
and
the
sup
por
t he
rec
eiv
ed
fro
m
var
iou
s
qua
rter
s,
incl
udi
ng
Al
ber
t
Ein
stei
n,
the
aut
hor
itie
s
wo
uld
not
rele
nt
and
he
wa
s
den
ied
the
rig
ht
to
tra
vel
abr
oad
for
the
nex
t
tw
o
yea
rs.
On
the
3rd
of
No
ve
mb
er
19
54,
wh
ile
lect
uri
ng
at
Co
rne
ll
Un
ive
rsit
y,
he
wa
s
call
ed
to
the
tele
ph
one
and
rec
eiv
ed
the
ne
ws
that
he
had
bee
n
aw
ard
ed
the
No
bel
Pri
ze
in
Ch
emi
str
y,
for
his
wo
rk
on
the
che
mic
al
bo
nd,
and
the
str
uct
ure
of
co
mp
lex
sub
sta
nce
s.
He
im
me
diat
ely
app
lied
for
his
pas
spo
rt,
and
afte
r
mu
ch
del
ay,
on
27t
h
No
ve
mb
er
just
tw
o
we
eks
bef
ore
the
aw
ard
s
cer
em
on
y,
he
eve
ntu
ally
rec
eiv
ed
his
pas
spo
rt.

Th
e
den
ial
of
a
pas
spo
rt
to
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
aff
ect
ed
his
sci
enti
fic
wo
rk,
as
he
wa
s
una
ble
to
atte
nd
con
fer
enc
es
wh
ere
the
late
st
dev
elo
pm
ent
s
wer
e
bei
ng
dis
cus
sed
.
Pa
uli
ng
wa
s
alre
ady
wo
rki
ng
on
the
str
uct
ure
of
DN
A,
but
wit
ho
ut a
pas
spo
rt
wa
s
una
ble
to
atte
nd
a
con
fer
enc
e
wh
ere
he
wo
uld
hav
e
bee
n
abl
e to
see
ph
oto
gra
phs
of
this
mo
lec
ule.
Wa
tso
n
and
Cri
ck
wh
o
cou
ld
see
the
ph
oto
gra
phs
ca
me
up
wit
h
the
cor
rect
str
uct
ure
of
the
DN
A
mo
lec
ule
and
if
Pa
uli
ng
had
als
o
see
n
the
ph
oto
gra
phs
he
mi
ght
hav
e
co
me
up
wit
h
the
sa
me
con
clu
sio
ns,
ma
ybe
eve
n
earl
ier
tha
n
Wa
tso
n
and
Cri
ck,
inst
ead
of
the
err
one
ous
trip
le
heli
x
mo
del
that
he
ca
me
up
wit
h.

Ba
cke
d
by
the
inte
rna
tio
nal
rec
og
niti
on
rec
eiv
ed
as
the
res
ult
of
the
No
bel
Pri
ze,
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng'
s
op
pos
itio
n
to
nuc
lear
we
apo
ns
bec
am
e
str
on
ger
.
He
pre
sen
ted
a
peti
tio
n
sig
ned
by
ove
r
11,
00
0
sci
enti
sts
fro
m
aro
un
d
the
wo
rld,
to
Da
g
Ha
m
ma
rsk
jöl
d,
the
Sec
reta
ry-
Ge
ner
al
of
the
Un
ited
Nat
ion
s,
call
ing
for
an
im
me
diat
e
inte
rna
tio
nal
ban
on
nuc
lear
test
ing
.
For
this
he
wa
s
yet
aga
in
for
ced
to
app
ear
bef
ore
a
Se
nat
e
Co
m
mit
tee
on
Int
ern
al
Sec
urit
y,
but
due
to
po
pul
ar
sup
por
t
the
Co
m
mit
tee
wa
s
for
ced
to
bac
k
do
wn.

In
19
58,
his
bo
ok
"N
o
Mo
re
Wa
r!"
wa
s
pu
blis
hed
, in
wh
ich
he
ma
kes
a
str
on
g
ple
a
for
wo
rld
pea
ce
and
poi
nts
out
the
dan
ger
s of
a
nuc
lear
war
.
Wh
en
Pre
sid
ent
Ke
nne
dy
dec
ide
d
to
res
um
e
atm
osp
her
ic
test
ing
of
nuc
lear
we
apo
ns,
Pa
uli
ng
sen
t
hi
ma
str
on
gly
wo
rde
d
tele
gra
m
pro
test
ing
his
acti
on.
Pa
uli
ng
con
tin
ued
in
his
pea
ce
eff
ort
s
and
pre
par
ed
a
dra
ft
res
olu
tio
n
for
a
test
ban
trea
ty,
cop
ies
of
wh
ich
he
pre
sen
ted
to
Pre
sid
ent
Ke
nne
dy
and
Pre
mie
r
Kh
rus
hch
ev.
For
tun
atel
y
he
wa
s
no
w
bei
ng
not
ice
d
and
the
sup
erp
ow
ers
agr
eed
to a
lim
ited
test
ban
trea
ty,
ver
y
mu
ch
sim
ilar
to
that
pro
pos
ed
by
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng,
wh
ich
ca
me
int
o
eff
ect
on
10t
h
Oct
obe
r
19
63,
the
ver
y
day
he
wa
s
aw
ard
ed
the
No
bel
Pea
ce
Pri
ze,
an
aw
ard
wh
ich
wa
s
str
on
gly
crit
icis
ed
by
sev
eral
peo
ple
in
the
Un
ited
Sta
tes.
Ne
ws
pap
ers
and
ma
gaz
ine
s
acr
oss
the
cou
ntr
y
car
rie
d
arti
cle
s
and
edit
ori
als
wh
ich
reje
cte
d
all
his
wo
rk
rela
ted
to
wo
rld
pea
ce,
wit
h
Lif
e
ma
gaz
ine
ter
mi
ng
the
aw
ard
of
the
No
bel
Pea
ce
Pri
ze
as
a
"W
eir
d
Ins
ult
fro
m
No
rwa
y".

No
twi
thst
and
ing
this
crit
icis
m,
the
fact
re
mai
ns
that
stil
l
tod
ay,
Pa
uli
ng
is
the
onl
y
per
son
to
hav
e
rec
eiv
ed
tw
o
uns
har
ed
No
bel
Pri
zes
.
Thi
s is
in
add
itio
n
to
the
sev
eral
oth
er
aw
ard
s,
me
dal
s,
and
ho
nor
ary
deg
ree
s
that
he
rec
eiv
ed.
He
als
o
ser
ved
in
diff
ere
nt
ass
oci
atio
ns,
hel
d
var
iou
s
aca
de
mic
pos
itio
ns,
and
pu
blis
hed
ove
r
10
0
sci
enti
fic
pap
ers
and
bo
oks
.

Fol
lo
wi
ng
the
aw
ard
of
the
sec
on
d
No
bel
Pri
ze,
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
beg
an
to
wo
rk
in
oth
er
fiel
ds
suc
h
as
hig
h
tem
per
atu
re
sup
erc
on
duc
tivi
ty,
me
ntal
illn
ess,
and
the
use
ful
nes
s of
Vit
ami
nC
in
co
mb
atin
g
illn
ess
es
as
div
ers
e
as
the
co
m
mo
n
col
d
and
can
cer.
In
19
73,
the
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
Ins
titu
te
of
Sci
enc
e
and
Me
dici
ne,
wa
s
co-
fou
nde
d
by
Pa
uli
ng,
at
Me
nlo
Par
k,
Cal
ifor
nia,
bef
ore
mo
vin
g
to
its
pre
sen
t
loc
atio
n
in
Pal
o
Alt
o.
Her
e
ext
ens
ive
wo
rk
wa
s
do
ne
in
var
ied
fiel
ds
suc
h
as
gen
etic
s,
can
cer,
agi
ng,
neu
rol
og
y,
im
mu
nol
og
y,
and
the
rol
e
of
Vit
ami
nC
and
oth
er
mic
ron
utri
ent
s,
in
hu
ma
n
hea
lth.
It
wa
s
this
per
iod
of
his
life
,
and
his
wh
ole
hea
rte
d
end
ors
em
ent
of
the
ben
efit
s of
ver
y
hig
h
dos
es
of
Vit
ami
nC
that
wa
s
the
mo
st
con
tro
ver
sial
and
spa
rke
d
off
sev
eral
deb
ate
s
bot
h
wit
hin
the
sci
enti
fic
co
m
mu
nit
y
and
am
on
g
the
gen
eral
pu
blic
,
wh
ich
rag
e
on
to
this
day
.
Mu
ch
of
wh
at
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
clai
me
d
abo
ut
Vit
ami
nC
and
its
ben
efit
s in
reg
ard
to
the
trea
tme
nt
and
pre
ven
tio
n
of
the
co
m
mo
n
col
d
and
can
cer
has
bee
n
dis
pro
ved
by
sev
eral
sci
enti
fic
stu
die
s
con
duc
ted
late
r
by
oth
ers.
Ho
we
ver
,
suc
h
wa
s
the
stat
ure
of
the
ma
n
that
sev
eral
peo
ple
beli
eve
d
hi
m
des
pite
the
fact
that
his
clai
ms
cou
ld
not
be
sup
por
ted
by
exp
eri
me
ntal
dat
a.

On
19t
h
Au
gus
t
19
94,
Lin
us
Pa
uli
ng
die
d at
the
rip
e
old
age
of
93,
bri
ngi
ng
do
wn
the
cur
tain
on
the
life
of
one
of
the
gre
ate
st
sci
enti
sts
of
the
twe
ntie
th
cen
tur
y.
Bes
ide
s
bei
ng
a
sci
enti
fic
gen
ius,
his
rol
e in
con
de
mn
ing
the
for
ced
inte
rn
me
nt
of
Jap
ane
se
A
me
rica
ns
dur
ing
the
Sec
on
d
Wo
rld
Wa
r,
his
op
pos
itio
n
to
the
war
s in
Vie
tna
m
and
the
Gu
lf,
his
de
ma
nd
for
an
end
to
nuc
lear
we
apo
ns
test
s,
and
adv
oca
cy
of
wo
rld
pea
ce,
and
his
con
tro
ver
sial
rec
om
me
nda
tio
n
of
lo
w
cos
t
Vit
ami
n
C,
sho
we
d
hi
m
to
be
a
ma
n
wh
o
car
ed.

Written by George Ferrao - © 2002 Pagewise

Tell us what topic you want to read about.

Biography Of Linus Pauling

Short Biography
By Dr. Robert J. Paradowski
Rochster Institute of Technology
Linus Pauling first came to the notice of many of his countrymen outside
From HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER, 1986
of science when he framed the issue on which public opinion compelled, at last, the suspension by the United
States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom of the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere. From
the time the atomic bomb tests began in earnest on Frenchman's Flats near Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1951, the
Atomic Energy Commission regularly issued reassuring press releases. High energy radiation had caused no
abnormal number of defects in the off-spring of parents exposed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they said.
Generations of fruit flies raised in radioactive containers showed "more vigor, hardiness, resistance to disease,
better reproductive capacity."

It was Linus Pauling, speaking with the authority of a Nobel laureate (in chemistry, 1954), who exposed the
fraud of this government's public relations campaign. He translated the physics of nuclear explosions into words
and numbers people could understand. Thus, it was known that the neutron flux in an explosion transmutes
atmospheric nitrogen into radioactive carbon-14. The Atomic Energy Commission called upon another Nobel
Prize-winner, Willard Libby, to show this effect would have negligible consequences. The large molecules of
the living cell are constructed around carbon, however, and C-14 readily substitutes for the non radioactive
isotope C-12.

From Libby's own figures Pauling calculated that the output of C-14 from the then scheduled weapons tests
would cause 55,000 children to be born with gross physical and mental defects, result in more than 500,000
miscarriages, still births, and newborn deaths, and cause as much leukemia and bone cancer as that caused by
all the fission products from the explosions combined.

The public controversy, sustained by Pauling's robust contributions, eventually induced the superpowers to
suspend the testing of atomic bombs in the atmosphere; they signed the treaty in 1963, and it went into effect on
the very day of the bestowal of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1962 on Linus Pauling. Throughout his campaign
against the weapon tests in the polarized American political climate of the 1950s, Pauling had to endure the
impugning of his citizenship and even the official affront of the lifting of his passport for a time by the
Department of State. As late as 1963, his Nobel Peace Prise was headlined in Life magazine as a "Weird Insult
from Norway."

Controversy was not, however, a novel experience for Pauling. In the first of his seminal contributions to
science in the 1920s, he had brought quantum physics and his powerful visual imagination into chemistry. The
chemical formula, laid flat in two dimensions on the page, then began to find operational expression in the
architectural configuration of molecules and crystals in three-dimensional space. Pauling showed how to
reconstruct these configurations from measurement of the distances and angles of the chemical bonds holding
atoms together. Workaday chemists, content with their science in its pre-Pauling cookbook stage, attempted to
repel the intrusion of physics into their field. They not only resisted his conceptual argument and challenged his
data, but called his integrity into question. Two generations of chemists, raised since then on textbooks,
including Pauling's own, that incorporate the revolution he brought to the foundations of chemistry, would have
difficulty recognizing the ground of that forgotten controversy. The Pauling method in controversy has always
been to establish the data and, in serene good humor, to state plainly what the data mean. He almost invariably
turns out to be right on the data and rarely wrong on the larger meaning. In 1964 he was provoked, however, to
bring suit against a particularly offensive newspaper. The jury, badly instructed on the law of libel, found that
the newspaper could not injure the reputation of so eminent a man.

For the past dozen years, Pauling's contributions to better understanding of nutrition and the enhancement of
people's health-which he has set out in this book [HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER, 1986] have
embroiled him in controversy with organized medicine and associated old-fashioned nutritionists. The
physicians, with only a few distinguished exceptions, denounce this non physician's intrusion into the practice
of medicine. They tend to pitch their argument on ad hominem grounds: Pauling is not a doctor, they say, but a
superannuated scientist out of his depth. This controversy has been a somewhat lonely one for Pauling. People
who acknowledge his stature in science deplore his travel so far out of the "mainstream." There are nonetheless
many also who hold, with the late Rene Dubos, that the mainstream converges with Pauling twenty years later.

Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 28, 1901. the son of Herman William Pauling, a
pharmacist, and Lucy Isabelle (Darling). He graduated from Oregon Agriculture College (now Oregon State
University) with a B.S. in chemical engineering in 1922 and went to California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, where Arthur A. Noyes, Richard C. Tolman. and Roscoe G. Dickinson helped to shape his career.
Joined by his bride Ava Helen Miller after a year, he pursued his studies in chemistry, physics, and
mathematics, leading to a Ph.D. in 1925. Distinguished already by his appointment as a National Research
Fellow, Pauling was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for study in Europe. He spent most of his year and a
half at Arnold Sommerfeld's Institute for Theoretical Physics in Munich, but he also spent a month at Niels
Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen and a few months in Zurich, where he studied with Erwin Schrodinger. He
returned to California in 1927 and began his long career as a teacher and researcher at Caltech. Pauling was one
of the first American chemists to master the technology of X-ray diffraction. This is the tool with which the
distances and angles of the atomic bonds in the three-dimensional structure of crystals and molecules air
determined; it is the tool that primarily brought on the revolution in the life sciences that we call today
molecular biology. Much of Pauling's early research was on the X-ray diffraction of inorganic crystals, for
example, topaz, the micas, the silicates, and the sulfides. His development of the coordination theory for
complex substances helped to create the field of crystal chemistry. This theory guides the selection, from many
possible crystal structures, of the chemically reasonable arrangement. It helped to bring X-ray diffraction into
analysis of the structure of organic molecules. At Caltech Pauling also trained many of America's future X-ray
crystallographers, among them, Nobel Prize winner W. N. Lipscomb. In 1930, as a result of a meeting with
Herman Mark in Germany, Pauling became interested in electron diffraction and he used this powerful tool
along with X-ray diffraction in his determinations of the structure of the large molecules of life.

As X-ray analysis and electron diffraction gave him experimental tools for exploring the structure of molecules,
so his study of quantum mechanics provided him with a theoretical tool. With this battery of tools he helped to
bring about the reconstruction of the foundations of the science of chemistry. Of the new chemistry, that sees
the bonds between and among the atoms of a molecule as established by the action of electrons, Pauling was the
principal organizer, generalizer, and system-builder. His great work, The Nature of the Chemical Bond, is a
landmark in the history of science.

Pauling's interest in biological molecules was stimulated, as he recalls in this book, by the arrival of T. H.
Morgan at Caltech in the late 1920s. By the middle 1930s Pauling was studying the hemoglobin molecule, a by
its striking color and the vital function served by its property of combining reversibly with the oxygen molecule,
Interest in hemoglobin led naturally to a more general interest in proteins. With Alfred Mirsky he published a
paper on the general theory of protein structure, which suggested that the polypeptide chain of each protein is
coiled and folded into a specific configuration which accounts for that molecule's function in the body; the
molecule lose this function, is "denatured," when that configuration is lost by breakage of the chemical bonds
that coil and fold the molecule.

On one of Pauling's visits to the Rockefeller Institute in New York, he met Karl Landsteiner, the discoverer of
blood types, who introduced to the field of immunology. Pauling's first paper on the structure of antibodies first
appeared in 1940. During World War II the thrust of his work shifted somewhat toward practical problems, for
example, finding an artificial substitute for blood serum. For his work in the service of the wartime Office of
Scientific Research and Development, he was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit. At the end of the war,
as a result of an encounter with Dr. William D. Castle, a coworker on a committee of the Bush Report, Science,
the Endless Frontier. Pauling became interested in sickle-cell anemia, which, he speculated might be a
molecular disease caused by an abnormal hemoglobin molecule. Working with Harvey Itano and others,
Pauling showed in 1949 that the abnormal hemoglobin was caused by just a single amino acid anomaly in one
of the polypeptide chains.

While a guest professor at Oxford University in 1948, Pauling returned to a problem that had occupied him in
the late 1930s, the coiling of polypeptide chain in proteins. By folding a paper on which he had drawn a
polypetide chain, he discovered the alpha helix. Pauling and Robert B Corey published a description of the
helical structure of proteins in 1950, and structure was soon verified experimentally.

With the recognition that deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the genetic molecule, Pauling became interested in its
three dimensional structure. In 1953 he and Corey proposed that it was made up of three chains, twisted around
each other in ropelike stands. Shortly thereafter, Watson and Crick proposed the double helix structure, which
turned out to be correct. Watson and Crick had the advantage of X-ray photographs of DNA taken by Rosalind
Franklin, an advantage denied Pauling because the U.S. State Department had lifted his passport (which it
reissued when he received the 1954 Nobel Prize in chemistry).

With the increased public visibility bestowed on him by his Nobel Prize, Pauling began to devote more of his
attention to humanitarian issues connected with science. In 1958, Pauling and his wife presented a petition
signed by over eleven thousand scientists from around the world to Dag Hammarskjold, secretary-general of the
United Nations, calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing. He had to defend that petition before a
congressional subcommittee in 1960, and he even risked going to jail for refusing to turn over the
correspondence with those who helped to circulate his petition. Meanwhile he had published his book No More
War!

Through the middle sixties Pauling was at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara,
California. He had left Caltech largely because of institutional hostility there to his peace efforts; at Santa
Barbara he hoped to be able to work in both areas, science and peace. Then be turned to work on the structure of
the atomic nucleus, from which he proposed his close-packed spheron theory that sees the protons and neutrons
in the nucleus arranged in clusters. The theory provides a simple explanation of nuclear properties, including
asymmetric fission.

Pauling left Santa Barbara in 1967 to become research professor of chemistry at the University of California in
San Diego. There he worked on the molecular basis of memory and published, in 1969, his paper on
orthomolecular psychiatry. This interest in orthomolecular medicine continued throughout the period of his
professorship at Stanford University in the late 1960s and early 1970s and led to his founding, in 1973, of the
Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine.

Throughout this latter phase of his career, Pauling's interest has centered on nutrition and the role of the
micronutrients, especially vitamin C (ascorbic acid), in the physiology of the organism. From this work came a
book for the lay reader, Vitamin C and the Common Cold published in 1970, which received the Phi Beta Kappa
Award as the best book on science of that year. Soon after, Pauling became interested in the use of ascorbic acid
in the treatment of cancer, largely through his contact with the Scottish physician, Dr. Ewan Cameron. Their
collaboration resulted in his 1979 book, Cancer and Vitamin C with Dr. Cameron as co-author.

Now in his eighties [1986], Pauling continues to travel all over the world, lecturing both on his classic work in
chemistry, biology, medicine, and peace, and on his present amplification his earlier ideas. He also continues to
write on these topics. In 1983, for example, the twenty-fifth anniversary revised edition of No More War! was
published. In all this he has remained faithful to his structural vision, whether he is using it to understand the
world of matter or to help improve the world of man.

Dr. Robert J. Paradowski

Rochster Institute of Technology
From HOW TO LIVE LONGER AND FEEL BETTER, 1986

Dr. Linus C. Pauling

• The most celebrated and decorated chemist in history

• First American scientist to master the technology of X-ray diffraction
• Incorporated quantum mechanics to make our modern chemistry
• Discovered the Alpha Helix
• Identified the cause of abnormal hemoglobin in Sickle cell anemia: a single amino-acid anomaly
• Proposed a theory to explain anesthesia
• Discovered the DNA triple Helix (alternate DNA structure that has been recently been found)
• Led petition effort that resulted in the Test Ban Treaty which halted above-ground Nuclear testing
• Authored more than 100 publications
• Received 58 honorary doctorates
• Only person to ever win two unshared Nobel Prizes
• Staunch Vitamin C Crusader

In the latter 1980s Pauling began his collaboration with German doctor Matthias Rath, MD. Together, they
discovered the vitamin C/lipoprotein(a) connection, proposed a unified theory to explain the great problem of
cardiovascular disease, and in 1994 they were awarded two patents for inhibiting the binding of lipoprotein(a)
plaque to the walls of arteries and tissues. Before he died in August 1994, Pauling asserted that he had come to
believe that the proper use of vitamin C and lysine can completely control, even cure, cardiovascular disease,
heart attacks and stroke.

How to order the Prentice Hall book Linus Pauling in His Own Words Edited by Barbara Marinacci.

Linus Pauling Institute Now at Oregon State University.

Back to Linus Pauling Unified Theory of Heart Disease

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