Barclay Kamb, 1931-2011

“I have just read an article about time by Hsü in PNAS.  I have not been able to understand it all.  However, he thanks you, so perhaps sometime when you come to the ranch you can explain his ideas to me.” -Linus Pauling, letter to Barclay Kamb, December 3, 1992. Geologist and former Caltech Vice [...]

The Paulings Go to England, 1947-1948

[Ed Note: Throughout 2011 the Pauling Blog will be featuring stories of the Paulings' travels around the world.  This is part 1 of 5 in a series exploring the Paulings' time in England, where they lived and worked for parts of two years after the close of World War II.] The Second World War had [...]

A Sentimental Trip

In the final months of 1981, Ava Helen Pauling was slowing down and making her final public appearances. She was spending as much time as possible with her husband and children, but encouraged Linus to stay busy and travel because of his difficulty dealing with emotional distress. She had been diagnosed with a form of [...]

Checking in on Condon

Over time we have written with some frequency about Condon, Oregon, the small farming community where Linus Pauling spent much of his youth.  And though we have come know a fair amount about the history of this little town in Gilliam County, it was not until recently that the Blog had an opportunity to actually [...]

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 – [...]

The Paternal Ancestry of Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling’s earliest known ancestor was Andreas Pauling, born ca. 1630.  Records indicate that Andreas’ grandson, Johann Christoph Pauling, married and started a family in Preusslitz, Prussia.  There the Paulings remained for at least two generations, until Johann Andreas Pauling (perhaps the grandson of Johann Christoph) move to Golbitz, in what is now western Germany. [...]

Creating The Pauling Catalogue: Special Features

[Part 8 of 9] Thanks in part to a number of special features that have been incorporated into the published Pauling Catalogue, the finished product is far from a simple listing of archival holdings. For starters, each volume contains an introduction by either a major historian of science, a member of the Pauling family or [...]