Linus Pauling

• 1. A Boy From Condon

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  Linus Carl Pauling was born on the 28th of February 1901, in Portland, Oregon. His father Herman Henry William Pauling worked as a traveling salesman for the Skidmore Drug Company before opening his own drugstore in Oswego. The family moved to Condon, Oregon, in 1905 when Linus was four years old. His father died of a perforated ulcer on the 11th of June 1910, leaving Lucy Isabelle Darling to raise three children alone.

  Pauling attributes his interest in chemistry to experiments conducted by a friend named Lloyd A. Jeffress. Jeffress owned a small chemistry lab kit that amazed the young boy. He later wrote about being entranced by chemical phenomena and reactions with strikingly different properties. In high school, Pauling scavenged equipment from an abandoned steel plant to conduct his own experiments.

  At age fifteen, he had enough credits to enter Oregon State University without a high school diploma. The school denied his request to take missing history courses concurrently during spring semester. He left Washington High School in June without graduating. The institution awarded him an honorary diploma forty-five years later after he received two Nobel Prizes.

• 2. The Nature Of Bonds

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  In 1931, the American Chemical Society awarded Pauling the Langmuir Prize for significant work in pure science by someone under thirty years old. The following year, he published what he regarded as his most important paper outlining orbital hybridization theory. This concept explained how electrons in atoms combine to form bonds between molecules like methane or ethylene.

  Between 1937 and 1938, Pauling delivered nineteen lectures at Cornell University while writing The Nature of the Chemical Bond. This book became known as chemistry's most influential text of the century. It was cited more than sixteen thousand times within thirty years of its first publication in 1939. Even today, modern scientific papers cite this work over seventy years after it first appeared.

  Pauling introduced the electronegativity scale in 1932 using energy required to break bonds and dipole moments of molecules. His five rules from 1929 helped predict crystal structures of ionic compounds based on cation radius ratios and electrostatic bond strength. These concepts remain part of standard chemistry textbooks used worldwide today.

• 3. Proteins And DNA

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  In 1951, Linus Pauling, Robert Corey, and Herman Branson correctly proposed the alpha helix and beta sheet as primary structural motifs in protein secondary structure. Their model contained an unorthodox assumption that one turn of the helix might contain a non-integer number of amino acid residues. For the alpha helix specifically, there are 3.7 amino acid residues per turn.

  Pauling later proposed that deoxyribonucleic acid existed as a triple helix with several basic mistakes including neutral phosphate groups conflicting with DNA acidity. James Watson and Francis Crick eventually discovered the correct double helix structure in early 1953. Pauling described missing the race to find DNA's true shape as the biggest disappointment in his life despite having ample opportunity to visit Rosalind Franklin's lab before writing his paper.

  His work on sickle cell anemia published in November 1949 proved human disease could be caused by abnormal proteins. This research became the first demonstration causally linking an abnormal protein to a disease and marked the dawn of molecular genetics. The study showed individuals with sickle cell disease had modified hemoglobin forms while those with the trait possessed both normal and abnormal versions.

• 4. Peace And Politics

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  In June 1946, Pauling joined the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists chaired by Albert Einstein to warn the public about nuclear weapon dangers. His political activism prompted the US State Department to deny him a passport in 1952 when invited to speak at a scientific conference in London. Senator Wayne Morse publicly denounced this action during a speech before the US Senate on June 6 of that same year.

  On the 15th of January 1958, Pauling and his wife Ava presented a petition signed by 11,021 scientists from fifty countries calling for an end to nuclear weapons testing. They delivered it directly to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. Public pressure and frightening results from the Baby Tooth Survey led to a moratorium on above-ground nuclear testing followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed the 10th of October 1963.

  The Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded Pauling the prize for 1962 on the day the treaty went into force. No prize had previously been awarded for that year. The committee described him as someone who campaigned ceaselessly against nuclear weapons tests since 1946. Many critics including Life magazine characterized his 1962 award as weird insult from Norway.

• 5. Vitamins And Controversy

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  In 1970, Pauling published Vitamin C and the Common Cold after becoming convinced of high-dose vitamin benefits through personal experience taking three grams daily. He began clinical collaboration with British cancer surgeon Ewan Cameron in 1971 using intravenous and oral vitamin C as therapy for terminal patients. Their book Cancer and Vitamin C discussed observations claiming survival increased four times compared to untreated patients among groups of one hundred people.

  A re-evaluation of claims in 1982 found patient groups were not actually comparable with the vitamin group being less sick upon entry. Later clinical trials conducted by Mayo Clinic oncologist Dr. Edward T. Creagan concluded ten thousand milligrams of vitamin C offered no benefit over placebo at treating cancer. The medical establishment judged his claims quackery despite Pauling denouncing study handling as fraud and deliberate misrepresentation.

  Pauling continued promoting vitamin C for treating cancer and common cold working with The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential to use it in brain-injured children treatment. A 2009 review noted differences between studies such as Mayo Clinic not using intravenous administration and suggested further research into vitamin C's role when given intravenously.

• 6. Legacy And Honors

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  Oregon State University completed construction of the seventy-seven million dollar Linus Pauling Science Center in the late 2000s housing most chemistry classrooms and laboratories. On the 6th of March 2008, the United States Postal Service released a forty-one cent stamp honoring Pauling designed by artist Victor Stabin. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Pauling would be inducted into the California Hall of Fame on the 28th of May 2008.

  February 28 has been named Linus Pauling Day by proclamation of Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber. The Linus Pauling Institute moved from Palo Alto to Corvallis in 1996 becoming part of the science center at Oregon State University. Valley Library Special Collections contain digitized versions of Pauling's forty-six research notebooks including his complete scientific records.

  The asteroid 4674 Pauling discovered by Eleanor F. Helin was named after him in 1991 on his ninetieth birthday. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory established its distinguished postdoctoral program as the Linus Pauling Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in 2010. His ashes were buried alongside his wife Ava Helen in Oswego Pioneer Cemetery in Lake Oswego beginning in 2005.