Pauling and Democracy

Linus Pauling reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, Washington High School, Portland, Oregon, 1966.

In honor of Independence Day, we are presenting below excerpts from two speeches delivered by Linus Pauling which are reflective of his beliefs concerning democracy and the importance of an informed and active citizenry.  The first passage is extracted from a talk that Pauling delivered in November 1940 titled “Science and Democracy,” written during a time when an increasingly-large portion of the world was collapsing into war.  The second is from a commencement address that Pauling gave to the graduating class of Cook College, Rutgers University in the Spring of 1983.  Though separated by forty-three years and very different in their content, Pauling’s steadfast belief in the democratic ideal shine through in both texts.

Science and Democracy, Tau Beta Pi Banquet, California Institute of Technology, November 26, 1940.

In these days we all have a greater consciousness of social and political subjects, and hence it may be allowed me to talk on the subject expressed in a general way by the title “Science and Democracy.”

Democracy in its development has run a parallel course to science. Democracy, that form of government in which the people rules itself, originated in Greece, at the time that science got its start. The science of the Greeks was not perfect – thus Aristotle thought that a body weighing two pounds would fall twice as fast as one weighing one pound; and Lucretius (a Roman, to be sure) said that the molecules of honey and milk are round, whereas those of wormwood are hooked. Similarly the democracy of the Greeks was the rule of only a portion of the people – the others, the slaves, were in fact not considered to be people.

Democracy and science both faltered and lagged in the Middle Ages. Then came the renaissance of science and the revolutions which led to the rebirth of democracy – a better democracy than that of the ancients. This started with the revolutions of 1642 and 1688 in England, which consolidated the parliamentary system; then the American revolution; the French revolutions of 1789, 1830, and 1848; and democracy got a firm and, we hope lasting start in the world.

Thomas Jefferson, who may be considered the father of American democracy, stated that it was closely linked with science. He wrote in a letter to John Adams that he and his followers had believed “in the improvability of the human mind in science, in ethics, in government, etc. Those who advocated a reformation of institutions, pari passu with the progress of science, maintain that no definitive limits could be assigned to progress. The enemies of reform, on the other hand, denied improvement and advocated steady adherence to principles, practices, and institutions of our fathers which they represented as the consummation of wisdom and the acme of excellence beyond which the human mind could never advance.”

Thus Jefferson contended that government, like science, could grow and improve through research. This is what democracy has done. There have been continual reforms, leading to a greater and greater voice of the people as a whole in the affairs of state. Thus in the time of Andrew Jackson, who was truly the representative of the people, the old caucus system of electing the president was abolished in favor of the modern one, with electors pledged to vote for a certain candidate, and now we are talking of election by popular vote.

The alternative, of dictatorship, is that of slavery, with the individual subject to the whim of the ruler. This freedom is something worth fighting for, worth going to war for if necessary.

And now let me talk a bit about science and war, since war and government are linked together. Man has always been a warlike animal, and he has usually been fighting for his freedom of action in one way or another. In the earliest times he fought with his neighbor when their interest clashed. Then when he had learned to form tribes for the common good and protection the tribes fought. In time, with the development of the science of agriculture, there arose towns, which fought with neighboring towns, and then small countries with other small countries. Now where are we, and what can we hope for? We have large countries – a score or more with a half-dozen of importance. These countries are fighting: the democracies, in which people are free, against the totalitarian states, in which people are the slaves of the rulers. England is fighting not alone for democracy but for existence – yet this is essentially for democracy. We are arming [our nation too]….

[What about] the future? We can extrapolate – with the progress of science the countries of the future will be larger. Ultimately – perhaps in our lifetime – there will be a world government. The great question is this: Will it be a world democracy or a world dictatorship? Either is possible.

The present war will lead to larger countries. Perhaps one will be so large as to dominate the world from now on – then the war would be over. Otherwise the issue will be settled by a later war or war.

The best hope is that the democracies will win this war and then continue to dominate the world.

The Duties of a Graduate, Commencement Address, Rutgers University - Cook College, New Brunswick, New Jersey, May 27, 1983.

You young men and women are now graduates. As graduates you have, because of your training, reached a position in the world that imposes duties upon you.

One of these duties is to be a good citizen. The first step toward being a good citizen is tot take an interest in community affairs, regional and national affairs, and world affairs. Making use of the training that you have now received, you can form opinions about the various problems that need to be solved and express your opinions, both by voting and by discussing the problems with other people.

I believe that every graduate, in addition to carrying out his own work in the world, as determined by his profession, has the obligation to help educate his fellow citizens, to the extent that he can. This obligation is an especially important one for graduates who have studied science. Nearly every problem in the world is to some extent a scientific problem. Scientists are better able to understand these problems than other people, and they may to some extent be somewhat more able to form reliable opinions about them. Accordingly, a scientist should not only strive to give information to his fellow citizens, based upon his special ability to understand the scientific aspects of problems, but should also give his fellow citizens the benefit of his own conclusions and opinions about the problems….

You must not think that your contribution toward solving the problems of the world will be so small as to be unimportant. We have seen that throughout history and especially during recent years public opinion has exerted a great effect on the world. Public opinion is your opinion and the opinion of others like you, which can be expressed in many different ways – by voting, by making statements at meetings or in letters or articles, by taking part in demonstrations, and in other ways.

I am reminded of an analogy. We have learned in our courses in physics that the pressure exerted on the end of the piston in the engine of an automobile is the result of bombardment by the trillions of trillions of molecules in the hot gas. The contribution of each molecule is very small, relative to the total pressure exerted, but if each molecule were to decide that it was unimportant the engine would not operate. In the same way the success of a mass movement depends upon the participation of the individual human beings in exerting pressure toward the goal.

There are many great problems in the world today – encroachment on the environment, the population explosion, the misdistribution of the world’s wealth, malnutrition and starvation, contamination of the environment by toxic substances, and especially the misery caused by war and the possibility of the extermination of the human race in a great nuclear catastrophe. These problems and others need to be attacked….

This is a beautiful world. We must all work to save it. Each of you, as a graduate, has a duty to the human race.

Each of you must take what action he can to save the world, and also take action to contribute to the development of a better world, a world worthy of man’s intelligence. I repeat: Do not think that you are unimportant. You are an important part of the world.

An Exposé of the Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections

“Pauling’s thinking was never cramped by traditional disciplinary boundaries. His investigations can be likened, not to a line drawn on a page, but to a drop of ink suffusing outward on the currents of curiosity and the tides of creativity.”
- Lee Sherman. “Like Looking Over His Shoulder,” Terra Magazine. June 2008.

We are pleased to announce that the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers are featured in the Summer issue of Terra Magazine, a multimedia publication which focuses upon research conducted at Oregon State University.

As part of the feature, Terra filmed a behind-the-scenes tour of the Special Collections facility, as led by department head, Cliff Mead. The tour, broken down into seven brief sections, touches upon the history of the collection, the various items that make up the Pauling archives, and the work that goes on in our department.

The tour videos accompany an article, written by Lee Sherman, that further describes the collection, featuring interviews with leading Pauling biographer Tom Hager and OSU historians of science Dr. Paul Farber and Dr. Mary Jo Nye.

In addition to the video tour and the article, the Pauling feature includes a variety of images, free downloadable wallpapers, (for computers and for iPods!) and links to other Pauling-related sites. A short timeline of Pauling’s life and a sidebar on Pauling’s correspondence are also part of the package. We encourage all of our readers to check out the Terra website and learn a little more about us.

“Like Looking Over His Shoulder,” the Terra special, can be found here.

For additional information, please visit the OSU Libraries Special Collections homepage.

Pauling and the Nobel Prize Trip

(Linus Pauling and King Gustav VI, Nobel Prize ceremonies, Stockholm, Sweden. 1954.)

“I doubt that many Nobel Prizes have been so popular with the masses in science…. [A]lmost all are delighted that the Nobel Prize embarrasses the State Department.”
- Charles Coryell in a letter to J. Robert Oppenheimer, as referenced in Force of Nature, by Tom Hager, p. 451. November 2, 1954.

In 1954, Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of complex substances.” Pauling, who had thought it unlikely that he would receive the Prize, was both shocked and thrilled. He received the news just before giving a lecture at Cornell University and, in his own words, he “had a little difficulty calming down enough to enter [the lecture hall].”

For the past several years, Pauling had been in almost constant struggle with the U.S. government. Pauling was an outspoken proponent of peace and loudly argued against American activities during the Cold War. As such, he had been branded a Communist sympathizer and, as a result, a threat to U.S. interests. Pauling knew his request for a passport renewal, which would allow him to participate in the Nobel ceremony, was going to be a sticking point.

Thanks to a European press blitz, accompanied by dozens of letters from well-known individuals, the U.S. State Department was forced to reassess its position of power. Pauling’s position as a Nobel winner, combined with his highly outspoken personality, placed the State Department at the wrong end of at the American public’s sympathies. When ominous-sounding letters from European delegates began arriving, insisting that Pauling be allowed to travel, the Passport Office decided enough was enough. Pauling was granted unfettered access to global travel.

After a thoroughly enjoyable celebration at Caltech, Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, along with their four children, departed for Sweden.

The Nobel ceremonies began on December 9, 1954. Each laureate was introduced with a speech detailing their accomplishments. After the speeches, the laureates were presented with their medals by King Gustavus VI. After the ceremony, a lavish dinner was held in the Gold Room of Stockholm’s city hall. Here, each prize winner was toasted by the king, and then offered a brief speech of his or her own.

Following the dinner, the laureates were led a balcony overlooking hundreds of university students. Pauling, as decided by his fellow award winners, was elected to speak to the students. After a brief introduction, he began his speech.

Perhaps, as one of the older generation, I should preach a little sermon to you, but I do not propose to do so. I shall, instead, give you a word of advice about how to behave toward your elders. When an old and distinguished person speaks to you, listen to him carefully and with respect - but do not believe him. Never put your trust in anything but your own intellect. Your elder, no matter whether he has gray hair or has lost his hair, no mater whether he is a Nobel Laureate - may be wrong. The world progresses, year by year, century by century, as the members of the younger generation find out what was wrong among the things that their elders said. So you must always be skeptical - always think for yourself.

At the close of his speech, the crowd below the laureates cheered and applauded Pauling and his message of hope and self-reliance.

The next two weeks were taken up by the delivery of speeches, a party at the U.S. embassy, and sightseeing in Sweden. After the Nobel festivities concluded, Linus Pauling and his wife departed on a four month trip, visiting Israel, India and Japan, giving over fifty speeches during their travels.

Pauling’s return to Pasadena was bittersweet. Though saddened to end his trip, he was reinvigorated with a sense of purpose. The people of the world were shocked by the Cold War and the threat of nuclear weapons. Pauling was prepared to return to his peace work, knowing he was supported by likeminded individuals the world over.

Learn more about Pauling’s Nobel trip on the website Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.

The Road to Stockholm: The Appalling Life of Linus Pauling

(Stage presentation of “The Road to Stockholm: The Appalling Life of Linus Pauling.” 1954.)

“Dr. Linus Pauling is the man for me / He makes violent changes in my chemistry / Oh, fie, when he rolls his eyes / All my atoms ionize.”
- Chemistry-Biology Stock Company, C.I.T.. Song lyrics from “The Road to Stockholm.” 1954.

Since Linus Pauling’s revolutionary work in chemistry in the early 1930s and the subsequent publication of The Nature of the Chemical Bond, the scientific community had been anticipating his receipt of the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately, his efforts went unrewarded by the Nobel community. While his name appeared as a nominee on more than one occasion, the honor managed to elude him. Pauling believed he had failed to win the award because he had never made a single major discovery. Instead, his achievements were a compilation of discoveries over the course of several decades. The Nobel Prize Committee, according to Alfred Nobel’s will, could not award the Prize for a body of work - it had to be for the single most important discovery in a given year.

In 1954 Pauling was shocked to discover that he had, in fact, won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. The Nobel Committee had given him the award for “research into the nature of the chemical bond…and its application to the elucidation of complex substances.” The Committee had broken precedent and given Pauling an award for his life’s work.

In honor of Pauling’s achievement, the Caltech faculty hosted an enormous dinner celebration. 350 faculty members and guests crowded into Caltech’s Athenaeum for a dinner which was accompanied by quips from Dr. Norman Davison, the night’s master of ceremonies, and a harp solo by a toga-clad faculty member. After the opening festivities, the crowd transferred to another Caltech building where they were treated to a series of hilarious parodies created by Pauling’s colleagues.

The performances, collectively titled “The Road to Stockholm,” included a number of songs, skits, and speeches. Much of the night’s entertainment was masterminded by a young humanities professor, Kent Clark and British post-doctorate Ted Harold. The two men were responsible for such inventive songs as “Pauling’s Courses” and “The Gates and Crellin Laboratory” which declared,

If you have an intuition that is clear and keen, and you love to pound your fingers on the desk machine
If you are fond of polyhedra and the way they pack, and for first approximations you have got the knack
Then the only place in the world to be, is the Gates and Crellin Laboratories of Chemistry.

The students and faculty spent the evening lampooning Pauling’s discoveries, loudly expounding on his achievements, and gently poking fun at his passport troubles. At the close of the festivities, Pauling took his place on stage and briefly lectured the audience on the academic environment and his newest research. He then heartily thanked the performers and the audience, declaring the event to be “the high point of my life.”

Ken Hedberg, currently a part of OSU’s chemistry department, was at Caltech during the celebration. He performed at Pauling’s dinner as a member of the chorus. He recalls Ava Helen and Linus sitting in the front row, highly entertained by the performances. “We,” he says, “all had a great deal of fun.”

Read more about this event here or visit this narrative page on the website “Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.”

Pauling’s Rules

(Studio Portrait of Linus Pauling. 1930.)

“I am enclosing a copy of a manuscript which Mr. Sturdivant and I have prepared, dealing with the structure of brookite. We feel rather confident in our structure, and are pleased to have begun work in the field which you recently opened — the study of complex ionic crystals.”
- Linus Pauling. Letter to William Lawrence Bragg. May 31, 1928.

X-ray diffraction, as discovered by Max Theodore Felix von Laue, is the process of examining a crystalline substance by tracking the scattering of x-rays upon contact with a given material. The process goes something like this: An x-ray photograph is taken, releasing x-rays which then interact with the sample and subsequently interfere with one another. This interference results in an image, known as a Laue photograph, of a diffraction pattern in which the x-rays that have passed through the crystal appear as small black dots. A trained crystallographer can then use this photograph as the basis for deriving the molecular structure of the sample crystal.

In the late 1920s, x-ray diffraction appeared to have reached the peak of its usefulness. Crystallographers had pinpointed the structure of most simple, few-atom crystals and were left to struggle with increasingly complex molecules. Unfortunately, with the addition of only one or two atoms, a crystal’s structure became considerably more difficult to derive. In complex molecules, the diffraction patterns were much more intricate, allowing for a large number of theoretically possible structures. Crystallographers, with the help of their lab assistants, were forced to wade through pages of complex mathematics in search of the correct structure. Pauling and J. Holmes Sturdivant, who were working together on complex crystals, had taken to hiring teams of students to crunch the calculations necessary for this sort of approach.

Pauling was dissatisfied with this process and felt that there had to be another way to attack the problem. He noted that many researchers involved in the field had discovered similar molecular structures and bonding patterns between different crystals, which suggested a limited number of structural possibilities. With this in mind, Pauling believed it possible to develop a guide which would help researchers derive molecular structures of complex crystals via the x-ray diffraction technique.

Supplementing his knowledge of crystalline structures and quantum mechanics with existing research, Pauling attacked the problem. In a short time, he was able to develop five simple guidelines for eliminating scores of theoretical structures, thereby greatly reducing the difficulty of solving molecular structures.

Pauling’s Rules, first published in 1928 as a part of his paper “The Principles Determining the Structure of Complex Ionic Crystals,” are still considered valid by today’s scientific community. They are as follows:

1. A coordinated polyhedron of anions is formed about each cation, the cation-anion distance is determined by the sum of ionic radii and the coordination number (C.N.) by the radius ratio.

2. An ionic structure will be stable to the extent that the sum of the strengths of the electrostatic bonds that reach an anion equal the charge on that anion.

3. The sharing of edges and particularly faces by two anion polyhedra decreases the stability of an ionic structure.

4. In a crystal containing different cations, those of high valency and small coordination number tend not to share polyhedron elements with one another.

5. The number of essentially different kinds of constituents in a crystal tends to be small.

After developing these rules, Pauling began to apply them in his own research. In 1929 and 1930, he worked at solving the structures of groups of silicates, including but not limited to mica and talc. Using his new system of rules, as well as an x-ray powder diffraction apparatus that he had built, Pauling was able to decipher previously unknown bonding patterns. His work with zeolites, for example, uncovered the basis of their unique gas-absorption properties, a problem that had baffled many of his contemporaries.

Pauling’s Rules propelled the young researcher to the forefront of the crystallographic community. In a very short time, he had become a major player in a reputable branch of structural science. Moreover, his use of both the crystallographic and quantum mechanical disciplines hinted at a possible meshing of the fields unlike anything seen before. The young scientist was well on his way to international fame on a grand scale.

Learn more about Pauling’s Rules on the website “Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.”

The Paulings’ Wedding Anniversary

(Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, wedding photo, June 17, 1923.)

“I suppose that I am responsible to some degree for Linus’s deciding to put so much of his effort into peace activities. In talking with him, I said I thought that it was of course important that he do his scientific work. But if the world were destroyed, then that work would not be of any value — so he should take part of his time and devote it to peace work.”
- Ava Helen Pauling. NOVA Interview. June 1977.

Today marks the eighty-fifth wedding anniversary of Linus and Ava Helen Pauling. In honor of the occasion, we would like to briefly share the story of their meeting, courtship and marriage.

On January 6, 1922, Linus Pauling, still an undergraduate, entered a classroom as instructor rather than student. Oregon Agricultural College, now Oregon State University, had hired him to teach a freshman level chemistry course to a class of home economics majors. Thomas Hager, a Pauling biographer, tells us:

[H]e knew the best way to avoid any “boy professor” sniggering was to get right to the subject. This was the second term of a three-term course, and he decided to start by measuring the class’s basic knowledge. “Will you tell me all you know about ammonium hydroxide, Miss…” He ran his finger down the registration sheet, looking for a name he couldn’t possibly mispronounce. “Miss Miller?” He looked up and into the eyes of Ava Helen Miller. She was a small, delicate, strikingly pretty girl with long, dark hair. She was barely eighteen years old. She was a flirt. And, as it turned out, she knew quite a bit about ammonium hydroxide. (Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. 69.)

In the months that followed, a relationship between the two blossomed and, at the end of the term, Pauling asked Ava Helen to marry him. She accepted. That fall, Pauling departed for Caltech where he continued his education and served as a teaching assistant. The couple corresponded regularly, but the distance between them grew unbearable. Against the wishes of both mothers, they chose to cut their engagement short and marry in the spring of 1923.

To make the trip up from southern California for the ceremony, Pauling purchased a Model T Ford from Roscoe Dickinson, a Caltech professor, and headed north for Oregon. Unfortunately, Pauling’s driving experience was limited to just a few minutes of practice and, come nightfall, he crashed into a roadside pit in the Siskiyou Mountains, resulting in an injured leg and a wrecked car. After waiting all night for help, Pauling was able to get his car repaired and arrived at the wedding on time.

Over the next six decades, the couple only grew closer. Together they raised four children, were leading activists for world peace, and were extremely instrumental in the creation of legislation banning the above-ground testing of nuclear weapons. Despite the pressures of Pauling’s work and activism, the couple remained inseparable until Ava Helen’s death in 1981.

In interviews, Pauling often cited his wife’s intelligence, good sense, patience and kindness as the foundation for many of his greatest achievements.

A plaque now hangs in Education Hall Room 201 on the Oregon State University campus, marking the location where Ava Helen Miller and her future husband first met.

For further information, visit the Linus and Ava Helen Pauling Papers.

The Guggenheim Trip, Part III: Unexpected Colleagues

(Walter Heitler, Fritz London, and Ava Helen Pauling in Europe. 1926.)

“The paper of Heitler and London on H2 for the first time seemed to provide a basic understanding, which could be extended to other molecules. Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena soon used the valence bond method. . . . As a master salesman and showman, Linus persuaded chemists all over the world to think of typical molecular structures in terms of the valence bond method.“
- Robert Mulliken. Life of a Scientist, pp. 60-61. 1989.

After Linus Pauling’s publication of “The Theoretical Prediction of the Physical Properties of Many-Electron Atoms and Ions,” he was ready for an even greater challenge - the problem of the chemical bond was a tantalizing enigma for Pauling, and he wanted more time in Europe to work on it. In the winter of 1926, he applied for an extension of his Guggenheim fellowship and with the help of a particularly complementary cover letter from Arnold Sommerfeld, Pauling was granted six more months of support. Boosted by this news, he quickly began planning visits to Copenhagen and Zurich, both cities boasting of some of Europe’s finest research facilities.

His first stop was Copenhagen, where he hoped to visit Niels Bohr’s institute and discuss ongoing research with the renowned scientist. Unfortunately, he had arrived uninvited and found it almost impossible to obtain a meeting with the physicist. Bohr, with the help of Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, was deeply engaged in research on the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, and was specifically attempting to root out the physical realities of the electron, in the process developing a theory which would eventually be termed the “Copenhagen Interpretation.”

Pauling did, however, did make one valuable discovery in Denmark — that of a young Dutch physicist named Samuel Goudsmit. The two men quickly became friends and began discussing the potential translation of Goudsmit’s doctoral thesis from German to English. Their work did eventually get them noticed by Bohr, who finally granted Pauling and Goudsmit an audience. Unfortunately for the pair, Bohr was neither engaging nor encouraging. Nevertheless, the two continued to work together, their cooperation eventually culminating in a 1930 text, The Structure of Line Spectra, the first book-form publication for either scientist.

In 1926 though, frustrated by his unproductive time in Copenhagen, Pauling departed, stopping briefly at Max Born’s institute in Göttingen before traveling to Zurich where other advances in quantum mechanics promised an interesting stay.

Unfortunately, the man Pauling was most interested in, Erwin Schrödinger, proved to be just as unavailable as Bohr. The quantum mechanics revolution was consuming the time and thoughts of Europe’s leading physicists and Pauling, a small-fry American researcher, simply wasn’t important enough to attract the interest of men like Bohr and Schrödinger.

As a result, Pauling chose to converse and work with men of his own status in the scientific community. Fritz London and Walter Heitler, acquaintances of the Paulings, had spent the past several months working on the application of wave mechanics to the study of electron-pair bonding. Heitler and London’s work was an outgrowth of their interest in the applications and derivations of Heisenberg’s theory of resonance, which suggested that electrons are exchanged between atoms as a result of electronic attraction. Heitler and London determined that this process, under certain conditions, could result in the creation of electron bonds by cancelling out electrostatic repulsion via the energy from electron transfer. Their work on hydrogen bonds likewise agreed with existing theories, including Wolfgang Pauli’s exclusion principle and G.N. Lewis’ shared electron bond. The Heitler-London model was well on its way to contributing to a new truth about the physics of the atom.

(Walter Heitler and Fritz London)

Pauling used his time in Zurich to experiment with the Heitler-London work. While he didn’t produce a paper during his stay, the new model made a great impression on him and he returned to Caltech with a renewed sense of purpose. He was preparing to tackle the problem of atomic structure, in all its manifestations, and make history as one of the greatest minds of the twentieth century.

For more information, view our post “Linus Pauling and the Birth of Quantum Mechanics” or visit the website “Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.”

The Guggenheim Trip, Part II: The Growth of a Scientist

“My year in Munich was very productive. I not only got a very good grasp of quantum mechanics — by attending Sommerfeld’s lectures on the subject, as well as other lectures by him and other people in the University, and also by my own study of published papers — but in addition I was able to begin attacking many problems dealing with the nature of the chemical bond by applying quantum mechanics to these problems.”
- Linus Pauling. The Chemical Bond: Structure of Dynamics, Ahmed Zewail, ed. 1992.

After his and Ava Helen’s stay in Italy, Linus Pauling was itching to return to the lab. The couple arrived in Munich in the last week of April and the first item on Pauling’s agenda was a meeting with Arnold Sommerfeld.

Sommerfeld, in association with Niels Bohr, was responsible for the Bohr-Sommerfeld model of the atom, a precursor to modern quantum mechanical ideas on atomic structure. At the time of Pauling’s European trip, Sommerfeld was serving as the director of the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Munich. He had spent the past decade building Germany’s community of physicists, nuturing many of Europe’s best scientists on a steady diet of cutting edge research. His lectures, famous by the time Pauling reached Europe, were known for their new and innovative content. As Thomas Hager, a Pauling biographer, explains, “[Sommerfeld] knew everyone in theoretical physics, had collaborated with many of them and corresponded regularly with the rest.” He knew exactly what was happening in his field and made sure his students did too.

Pauling’s first Munich meeting with Sommerfeld was something of a disappointment for the young scientist. Rather than being allowed to continue the work he had begun at Caltech, Sommerfeld chose to assign Pauling mathematical research relating to electron spin - an area that held little interest for him.

After a spell of half-hearted devotion to the electron spin problem, Pauling convinced Sommerfeld to allow him to study the motion of polar molecules. Pauling believed he could clarify portions of the Bohr-Sommerfeld model by introducing the effects of a magnetic field to the existing equations. This caught Sommerfeld’s attention and Pauling was subsequently instructed to continue his research under the stipulation that he provide Sommerfeld with the details of his work for presentation at an upcoming conference in Zurich. Pauling did so, and a few days after Sommerfeld had departed for the conference, he received an order to appear in Zurich to discuss his work.

Once at the conference, Pauling found himself surrounded by the leading physicists of Europe. Wolfgang Pauli, a young German physicist famous for his development of the revolutionary Pauli Exclusion Principle, was among those in attendance. On a whim, Pauling approached his colleague and began explaining his recent work on the Bohr-Sommerfeld model. Pauli was unimpressed. The paradox-riddled Bohr-Sommerfeld model, and Pauling’s work supporting it, was on its way out with the new ideas of quantum mechanics soon to take its place. Pauling’s research was too late to be of any value and Pauli was not shy about telling him so.

After finishing his summer vacationing with Ava Helen in Switzerland, Pauling returned to Munich for the fall semester. It was at this time that Pauling really began to prove himself, developing a reputation for his extensive knowledge and concentrated enthusiasm. Pauling’s most important accomplishment, however, was not his ability to make friends. Instead, it was gaining both the attention and the esteem of Arnold Sommerfeld. Pauling did so by discovering a mathematical error in the work of Gregor Wentzel, a protégé of Sommerfeld. The discovery and correction of this mistake garnered Pauling a great deal of respect in Sommerfeld’s eyes.

As it turned out, Pauling’s discovery of Wentzel’s error resulted in more than just Sommerfeld’s acclaim. It allowed Pauling to apply Wentzel’s work to the calculation of energy levels, which in turn provided the platform for a series of calculations on the energy values for complex atoms. This was a totally new approach to deriving atomic properties and Pauling took full advantage of his discovery, publishing his findings in a paper titled “The Theoretical Prediction of the Physical Properties of many-Electron Atoms and Ions.”

In a matter of months, Pauling had evolved from a star-struck young American to a legitimate player in the European field of quantum mechanics. Fortunately for him, his rise to scientific prominence had only just begun.

Read about Arnold Sommerfeld in “The Duelist” or learn more about this entire story on the website “Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.”

The Guggenheim Trip, Part I: Touring in Southern Europe

(Ava Helen Pauling at The Temple of Neptune. Paestum, Italy, 1926)

“Noyes, a romantic at heart, may have hoped that Pauling’s Italian tour would bring to flower a latent aesthetic sensibility. But Pauling wasn’t Noyes.”
- Thomas Hager, Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling, 1995

By the mid-1920s, scientific institutions across Europe were producing top notch researchers in physics and chemistry. New and exciting research was being conducted across the continent and the scientific community was booming. To many, Caltech seemed a veritable backwater compared to the laboratories of Göttingen, Munich, and Copenhagen. It was in this context that, in 1925, Linus Pauling applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship with the hope of funding a European tour to visit the continent’s world-famous laboratories and learn from its scientific leaders.

In mid-1920s, prior to his Guggenheim application, Pauling was supported by a fellowship from the National Research Council. The fellowship was meant to allow Pauling to work at Caltech for six months, and then send him on to the University of California, Berkeley for another six month stint. A. A. Noyes, head of the Caltech chemistry department, had other plans. As a leading member of the American scientific community, he was able to convince Frank Aydelotte, the head of the Guggenheim Foundation, to guarantee Pauling a fellowship. Noyes also proposed that Pauling be sent to Europe early so that he and Ava Helen could enjoy the sights of the continent before beginning an intensive work schedule. In return, Noyes suggested that Pauling forfeit his National Research Council fellowship and remain at Caltech rather than serving the half-years stint at Berkeley. Pauling readily accepted the proposal.

On March 4, 1926, Linus and Ava Helen Pauling said goodbye to their infant son and departed for the East Coast. After a trans-continental train trip and a brief stay in New York, the couple stepped onto the steamship Duilio, therein officially embarking on their first trip to Europe. After a week of rough seas and a “young hurricane,” the Paulings and their shipmates finally set foot on dry land on the island of Madeira off the coast of Portugal. In response to her first sight of European land, twenty-three year-old Ava Helen wrote in her diary,

“For two hours we sailed along the southern edge of Madeira, watching the pretty villages made of toy houses with red roofs scattered along the terraced slopes, and seeing light lovely waterfalls beneath the snow-topped hills.”

Her diary entries, filled with romantic imagery and exclamations of delight, contrast sharply with her husband’s letters to his mentor, A. A. Noyes, in which he deemed Naples “not spotless,” the Roman ruins “disappointing” and Rome itself “terribly crowded.”

The Paulings’ wedding had been a quiet event followed by a one-day honeymoon in the small town of Corvallis, Oregon. Though three years late, their stay in southern Europe evolved into the honeymoon that they had missed. Even Linus’ complaints couldn’t stifle the fun of the trip. Ava Helen Pauling kept a travel diary, given to her by Linus and inscribed “For my dear Ava Helen.” In it she (and occasionally her husband) recounted, in detail, the notable events of their travels, including a diagram of the Rock of Gibraltar. In contrast, Pauling’s own diary briefly notes the trip across the U.S., a few sights in New York, and several days’ weather reports before ending in a long series of blank pages. It seems the young scientist had little interest in travel journalism.

Among the more colorful of Ava Helen’s entries is her description of an assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini in which an English woman “shot him through the nose,” followed by a further recounting of Mussolini’s car, containing the undoubtedly shaken leader, as it passed through a crowd of excited Fascists. This was not the only encounter the couple had with Italian politics during their stay. On a train ride from Pisa to Florence, the Paulings found themselves in conversation with a leader of the Fascist movement in Florence. During the trip, he regaled them with stories of his war wounds, the evils of Communism, and the successes of Mussolini. The couple, while entertained by the man’s exotic tales, were “glad to return to Florence and to dinner.”

The Pauling’s vacation, originally meant to continue through the end of April, ended a week early, at Linus’ insistence. In a letter to Noyes, he wrote “We have come to the end of a very pleasant trip, and I am glad; for even though Italy is wonderful, and everything was new to us, traveling becomes tiresome. Moreover, I am very anxious to get back to work after nearly two months of idleness.” Not even the romance of Italy in the spring could keep Pauling out of the laboratory for long. It was on to Munich for the restless young scientist.

View Ava Helen Pauling’s entire travel diary or learn more about the Guggenheim trip on the website “Linus Pauling and the Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History.”

[Ed. Note: Parts II and III of our series on the Paulings' Guggenheim trip will appear next week]

Roderick MacKinnon video now available

Fully-transcribed video of Dr. Roderick MacKinnon’s Linus Pauling Legacy Award Lecture is now available on the Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections website. Titled “Ion Channel Chemistry: The Electrical System of Life,” MacKinnon’s talk was delivered in Portland on May 5, 2008.

Click here to view Dr. MacKinnon’s presentation