An Electronegativity Breakthrough

Exciting news from the laboratories of Oregon State University: a group of researchers here have developed a method that simplifies the scientific understanding of electronegativity, a concept introduced and greatly advanced by Linus Pauling in the 1930s with his “electronegativity scale.”  We’ve written about Pauling’s electronegativity work before and since we’re in an interviewing mood [...]

On Isosteric Isomers: An Important Early Paper

In 1926 life was going well for twenty-five year old Linus Pauling – he had been married for a couple of years, had a healthy one year old son, and was quickly establishing himself as one of the top chemists in the United States. His primary research topic at the time was structural chemistry, and [...]

A Theory of the Structure of Ice

By 1935 – 75 years ago this year – Linus Pauling was in the thick of his scientific career. He had been at Caltech for over a decade, and had already conducted an impressive amount of important research on crystal structures and the chemical bond. During this year, Pauling also postulated a theory of the [...]

Julia Bursten, Resident Scholar

Julia Bursten is the fifth individual to complete research as a Resident Scholar in the Oregon State University Libraries Special Collections.  Bursten is a doctoral candidate in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. [Update: transcribed video of Bursten's Resident Scholar presentation is now available.] Bursten came to Corvallis to study [...]

Resonance in Benzene and Beyond

[Part 2 of 2] “Suppose that we ask: is it necessary that a molecule such as CO have a definite valence-bond structure? The answer, which is part of the new idea, is no; instead the CO molecule may have (and does have) a structure which is neither C=O or C≡O, but is somewhere between them, [...]

Developing the Theory of Resonance

[Part 1 of 2] “I think my work on the chemical bond probably has been most important in changing the activities of chemists all over the world – changing their ways of thinking and affecting the progress of the science.” Linus Pauling, 1977. In early 1932, Linus Pauling spent several months visiting the University of [...]

Project Adrift: The Second Edition Fizzles Out

[Part 4 of 4] The cordial disagreements over the shape of the second edition of Introduction to Quantum Mechanics began in August 1955 when Martin Karplus sent to Linus Pauling his first revision of the book. Many of the revisions that Karplus was making did not fall in line with those that Pauling and E. [...]

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics: A Second Edition?

[Part 3 of 4] During its first eighteen years in print, Linus Pauling and E. Bright Wilson, Jr.’s Introduction to Quantum Mechanics sold over 17,000 copies.  Heartened by the success of the first edition, Pauling wrote to his co-author in November 1953, It seems to me that the book has been successful enough to justify [...]

Pauling and Wilson

[Part 2 of 4] In 1926, while still in Europe completing his Guggenheim fellowship, Pauling attended history’s first full-term lecture on the new concept of wave mechanics as applied to quantum theory. This course, taught by Arnold Johannes Willhelm Sommerfeld, a renowned German theoretical physicist and a pioneer of quantum mechanics, was historically significant as [...]

Pauling Amidst the Titans of Quantum Mechanics: Europe, 1926

[Ed. Note: Spring 2010 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of Linus Pauling and E. Bright Wilson, Jr.'s landmark textbook, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics.  This is post 1 of 4 detailing the authoring and impact of Pauling and Wilson's book.] “…the replacement of the old quantum theory by the quantum mechanics is not the [...]