Linus Pauling

American chemist

• Born: February 28, 1901; Portland, Oregon
• Died: August 19, 1994; Big Sur, California

In addition to his work with chemical bonds, noted American chemist Linus Pauling made significant contributions to the fields of quantum mechanics and molecular biology. He is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes. After World War II, Pauling became an outspoken critic of nuclear armaments.

Primary fields: Chemistry; biology

Specialties: Physical chemistry; biochemistry; molecular biology

Early Life

Linus Carl Pauling was born on February 28, 1901, in Portland, Oregon. His father, a pharmacist, died when Pauling was young. The death was not only an emotional trauma for the family but a financial one as well; Pauling’s mother and two younger sisters struggled financially while he was in high school, and he was often pressured to withdraw from school to work full time. Although he was an outstanding student, Pauling never actually graduated from high school because he lacked a required course in civics. He was eventually awarded a diploma after he won his second Nobel Prize.

As an undergraduate student at Oregon Agricultural College (now Oregon State University), Pauling was often on the verge of dropping out of school due to his family’s financial circumstances. However, the school provided him a job as teaching assistant to allow him to continue his studies. While working as a teaching assistant, he became involved with Ava Miller, one of his students; the two were married in 1923. Pauling earned his bachelor’s degree in 1922 and immediately began graduate studies at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). There, he focused his studies on the nature and structure of crystallized minerals. This work was related to his increasing interest in atomic and molecular structure. He received his PhD in 1925.

After graduating from Caltech, Pauling won a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Germany and Switzerland under several leading scientists, including Danish physicist Niels Bohr. In Europe, Pauling continued his study of atomic structure and chemical bonds, concentrating on the emerging field of quantum mechanics. After completing his two-year fellowship, Pauling returned to Caltech in 1927 to teach; three years later, Caltech made him a full professor of chemistry, a position he maintained until 1964. In 1931, he spent a year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a professor of chemistry and physics. In 1933, he became the youngest individual to become a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Throughout the 1930s, Pauling worked on one of his most important books on chemistry, The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals (1939), which would become his most influential work.

Life’s Work

By 1935, Pauling had begun conducting research outside of chemistry and physics, as his interests turned to the related field of molecular biology. His areas of study included hemoglobin and its ability to bind to oxygen and the nature of hydrogen bonding and its effect on the structure of proteins.

In the 1940s, Pauling continued his groundbreaking work on protein structure and function. In 1945, he and his colleagues created a plasma substitute; in 1949, he pioneered the study of sickle-cell anemia and red blood cells. These breakthroughs led to a thorough structural description of proteins. In 1950, he created the first molecular model of protein structure. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 in recognition of this work.

During World War II, Pauling, along with most of the faculty at Caltech, worked for the US government as a scientist and researcher. Although he declined Robert Oppenheimer’s invitation to work on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, Pauling did participate in weapons development. Despite supporting the war effort, both he and his wife spoke out against the internment of Japanese Americans during the war, a position that was quite unpopular at the time.

The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the effects of nuclear radiation on survivors changed Pauling’s attitude regarding the danger posed by the proliferation of weapons technology. His background in biological sciences and his work with the Department of Defense gave him a unique perspective on the dangers of the production, testing, and use of nuclear weapons. Over the years, Pauling worked with physicist Albert Einstein on several peace initiatives. In 1947, he was given the Presidential Medal of Merit by President Harry Truman.

Although Pauling was initially commended for his efforts at disarmament, the Red Scare of the 1950s changed the social and political climate in the United States. As a result of his activism and notoriety, the popular media characterized him as insufficiently patriotic, public sentiment turned against him, and he was accused of being a communist. Many of Pauling’s colleagues did not approve of his antiwar stance, and some even tried to force him out of Caltech. In 1950, he was ordered to testify regarding his views on communism and other political beliefs. During his testimony, he complained about the climate of fear and paranoia that such hearings had created.

In response to Pauling’s public statements regarding nuclear weapons and his questioning of the constitutionality of “oaths of patriotism,” the US government denied Pauling a passport in 1952. In 1954, he was finally allowed to travel to Stockholm, Sweden, to receive his first Nobel Prize. In 1958, Pauling distributed a letter, signed by over eleven thousand scientists and presented to the United Nations, warning of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the hazards of future wars. The same year, he published the book No More War.

During the mid-1960s, Pauling became interested in the benefits of vitamin C. He believed that the vitamin had a significant role in the prevention of the common cold, and he later suggested that it could be useful in fighting cancer. These theories were unpopular at the time, and many scientists have since observed that Pauling’s data, influenced by chemist Irwin Stone, was based on faulty research.

Pauling worked at the University of California, San Diego from 1968 to 1969 and at Stanford University from 1969 to 1972. In 1973, Pauling and other researchers established the Institute of Orthomolecular Medicine in Palo Alto, California, later renamed the Linus Pauling Institute in his honor. Pauling was active at the institute for the remainder of his life. After one of the most productive and wide-ranging careers in science, Linus Pauling died of cancer on August 19, 1994, at the age of ninety-three.

Impact

By deciphering the basic structure of proteins, Pauling played a role in the discovery of the double-helix structure of the protein deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953. Some of the information used by Crick and Watson in their research was revealed at a conference in London, which Pauling was unable to attend due to the restrictions on his travel. Some biographers have suggested that Pauling would have played a greater role in the discovery if he had been allowed to travel freely.

Despite the opposition he faced in the 1950s, Pauling continued to lobby against the development of new nuclear technology and work to limit weapons proliferation. By the following decade, public awareness of the dangers posed by the Cold War began to grow. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, combined with Pauling’s efforts to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear technology, led to the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. The previous year, Pauling had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his antiwar work.

Pauling was a prolific writer. Over the course of his career, he published more than 350 academic papers; in his later years, he wrote and cowrote numerous books, particularly on vitamin C. His work gained national and international recognition, and he received honorary degrees from universities in seven countries. In addition to his Nobel Prize in Chemistry, he was also awarded the National Medal of Science in 1975 and the Vannevar Bush Award in 1989, among other honors.

Bibliography

Badash, Lawrence. “The Near-Appointment of Linus Pauling at the University of California, Santa Barbara.” Physics in Perspective 11.1 (2009): 4–14. Print. Describes Pauling’s political activism for a ban on nuclear weapons testing and examines how his politics influenced his career.

Manchester, K. “Linus Pauling and Biochemistry: How Things Were Shaping up 50 Years Ago.” South African Journal of Science 95.1 (1999): 5–7. Print. Contextualizes Pauling’s work in the scientific understanding of the 1950s. Describes Pauling’s research into the structure of peptide chains and the formation of antibodies.

Zorky, P. M. “Linus Pauling, the Greatest Chemist of the 20th Century (On the Occasion of his 100th Anniversary.” Crystallography Reports 46.6 (2001): 887–90. Print. Provides background information on the life and work of Linus Pauling. Describes his major scientific achievements.