Oppenheimer Minerals Update

We’ve received several comments on the unidentified minerals referenced in the previous post.  Here are those comments, along with revised images of the mystery specimens as color-corrected in Photoshop, (the original photos all having been admittedly a bit too yellow).
“possibly native silver or copper… the colors are a bit distorted in the [original] photo”
“appears to [...]

The Oppenheimer Minerals

For a short period of time in the late 1920s, Linus Pauling and J. Robert Oppenheimer were colleagues at the California Institute of Technology.  While the tenor of their relationship was, in the end, rather tumultuous, the two did share many common interests.
One such interest was a passion for minerals.  Both Pauling and Oppenheimer developed [...]

Extracts from the Messenger Lectures

(Part 4 of 4 in our series marking the fiftieth anniversary of Pauling’s delivery of the Messenger Lectures.)
For our final post on Linus Pauling’s 1959 Messenger Lecture series, we have compiled a number of quotations from the talks themselves and from his own personal preparatory notes.  These excerpts highlight the most significant elements of Pauling’s [...]

The Molecular Theory of Civilization

(Part 3 of 4 in our series marking the fiftieth anniversary of Pauling’s delivery of the Messenger Lectures.)
At the heart of Pauling’s Messenger Lectures was his newly established theory which he referred to simply as the “molecular basis of civilization.”  Through his work as a chemist, Pauling had developed a belief that the seeming randomness [...]

Science and Philosophy

(Part 2 of 4 in our series marking the fiftieth anniversary of Pauling’s delivery of the Messenger Lectures.)
Above all else, Linus Pauling considered himself to be a man of rational thought. The Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers are filled notebooks and manuscripts detailing Pauling’s ideas on practical manners (such as reflective road signs), [...]

The Messenger Lectures

[Ed note: October 2009 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Linus Pauling's delivery of the Messenger Lectures at Cornell University. This is part one of a four post series discussing participation in the Messenger series.]
The Messenger Lectures on the Evolution of Civilization, better know simply as the Messenger Lectures, is a prestigious lectureship hosted by [...]

Pauling and the Dutch Stellingen

LP: One interesting thing that you may not know is that I guess I introduced the proposition system into the United States.
Q: Proposition system?
LP: Yes, in doctor’s examinations.
Q: Oh, the Dutch theses?
LP: The Dutch Stellingen. In 1935, I think it was, I’d been talking about these propositions. The doctor’s examinations were pretty boring, [...]

Remembrance

Fifteen years ago, on August 19, 1994, at around 7:20 PM PDT, Dr. Linus Pauling died at the age of 93, a victim of prostate cancer.
Pauling was cremated and, some eleven years later, his and Ava Helen’s ashes were interred at the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery, the final resting place of Pauling’s parents Herman and Belle, [...]

Stuck on a Cliff

On the morning of January 30, 1960, Linus Pauling told his wife Ava Helen that he would be out checking the fence lines along the boundaries of their ranch near Big Sur, California. A little before 10:00AM, Ava Helen watched as Linus walked towards the coast south of their cabin but did not notice [...]

Many Years…

I just saw a statement by Dr. Joyce Brothers about vacation, who said, you can never plan to go with your companion for longer than three days on vacation, because people can’t stand being with one another for more than three days.  She just doesn’t know anything!  Thirty years ago, we were in our cabin [...]