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Portrait of Linus Pauling

Science · Chemistry

Linus Pauling

1901–1994 · American

Structural and quantum chemistry; molecular biology

Linus Pauling was an American chemist whose application of quantum mechanics to the chemical bond transformed chemistry; his book The Nature of the Chemical Bond became a classic. He won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and, for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing, the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize, making him the only person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes. He also discovered the alpha helix in proteins, but later became controversial for promoting megadoses of vitamin C.

How to spot them

  • ▸Two unshared Nobel Prizes: Chemistry 1954 and Peace 1962
  • ▸The Nature of the Chemical Bond; electronegativity scale; resonance and orbital hybridisation
  • ▸Alpha helix and beta sheet in proteins; sickle-cell anaemia as a 'molecular disease'
  • ▸A wrong triple-helix model of DNA in 1953; vitamin C and the common cold
  • ▸Caltech; born in Portland, Oregon

Key discoveries & works

The Nature of the Chemical Bond (1939)

Hugely influential book explaining bonding through quantum mechanics, resonance and hybridisation

Electronegativity scale (1932)

Numerical scale of how strongly atoms attract bonding electrons; fluorine is highest

Alpha helix and beta sheet protein structures (1951)

Proposed with Robert Corey and Herman Branson; key features of protein secondary structure

Sickle-cell anaemia identified as a molecular disease (1949)

Showed that patients' haemoglobin differs in its electrical charge

An incorrect triple-helix model of DNA (1953)

Published shortly before Watson and Crick's double helix

No More War! (1958)

Book arguing against nuclear weapons and their testing

Vitamin C and the Common Cold (1970)

Bestseller promoting large doses of vitamin C, a claim not supported by later trials

Key ideas

  • Applied quantum mechanics to explain how atoms bond, introducing resonance and orbital hybridisation to chemists
  • Pioneered molecular biology by linking molecular structure to biological function and disease
  • Pauling's rules describe the structures of ionic crystals

Quick-fire facts

  • •Only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes
  • •The 1962 Peace Prize was announced in 1963, on the day the Partial Test Ban Treaty came into force
  • •Spent most of his career at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
  • •In 1952 the US State Department refused him a passport, so he could not attend a meeting in London where he might have seen King's College DNA data
  • •Married to Ava Helen Pauling, a peace activist, for nearly 60 years
  • •Founded what became the Linus Pauling Institute, now at Oregon State University, his alma mater
  • •Died at his ranch at Big Sur, California, in 1994

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Sources