The Paulings Go to England, 1947-1948

Crellin Pauling on the Queen Mary, 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 come to a close and Linus Pauling was in transition from his war-time work back to the regular goings-on at the California Institute of Technology when he received an enticing invitation. Frank Aydelotte, American Secretary for the Rhodes Scholarship Trust and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (academic home of such greats as Albert Einstein), wrote Pauling in January of 1946 proposing his appointment as the George Eastman Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford for the coming academic year.

The appointment would include a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College – among the oldest of Oxford’s thirty-eight colleges. It was an attractive offer; with only two or three lectures a week required of him, Pauling would have ample time to visit other European universities and steep in the vibrant culture of international chemistry.

Pauling felt deeply honored by the invitation and was anxious to return to Europe once more after his last visit in 1930. But the appointment would have to wait a year while he remained in Pasadena to develop the chemistry and biology programs at CIT and finish his freshman text, General Chemistry, published in 1947. After much correspondence between Aydelotte and Pauling it was decided in early 1947 that he would serve as Eastman Professor for the winter and spring terms of 1948.

Though the professorship was postponed, Linus and Ava Helen managed to squeeze in a visit to England and Switzerland in June and July of 1947 for a mix of vacation and conferences. As was typical, the Paulings were kept busy with a multitude of social affairs. But after much hustle and bustle in Cambridge, where Pauling received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Cambridge, and Oxford, where he made preparations for his coming professorship, some quiet days in London and Stockholm were found, which the couple “devoted exclusively to resting and sight-seeing.”

Pauling receiving an honorary doctorate of science from the Earl of Athlone, University of London. July 1947.

Pauling’s role at the forefront of American chemistry (he would learn right before embarking on his voyage in December 1947 that he had been chosen as President-Elect of the American Chemical Society) also garnered him a key place in chemical matters abroad, and his July was filled to the brim with meetings and conferences. After three days at the International Congress of Experimental Cytology in Stockholm, he returned to England for the International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry. This event coincided with the International Union of Chemistry, where Pauling presided as Congress Lecturer, as well as the Centenary Celebration of The Chemical Society at the University of London.

At the latter event, Pauling received another honorary degree and delivered an after-dinner speech on behalf of his fellow honorary graduates.  In it, he called scientists to action and leadership in ending war and expressed hope that soon there would be a “supra-national world government, and that we shall all be fellow citizens, citizens of the world.”

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Their two-month escape primed the Paulings’ excitement for their extended stay the coming year. However, the planning for the upcoming trip proved to be almost as difficult as the initial decision of when to go.

With England in the beginning stages of recovery from the war, travel in the UK was less than ideal. Securing a house for the five Paulings proved such a difficult task that the entire trip was on the verge of being canceled a month before departure. Ultimately the family decided to make the sacrifice of staying in a hotel – Linton Lodge – for several weeks until a small flat was finally procured for them.

The strict food rationing implemented in England during wartime carried over into the post-war years and presented a challenge for Ava Helen in preparing the very strict low protein diet necessary for keeping the effects of her husband’s nephritis at bay. Linus Pauling’s doctor, Thomas Addis, even wrote to The Ration Board to ensure that the visiting scientist would be able to receive the forty grams of protein (from eggs, milk, cheese, cereals, vegetables and fruits – not meat, chicken or fish) required by his unique 2,500-3,000 calorie diet.

Indeed, Pauling left no stone unturned in his planning, even writing to a doctor friend for advice on preventing seasickness. Despite initial skepticism that schools would be found for the children over in England, Ava Helen managed to enroll nine-year-old Crellin in the Dragon School – where he was the best man in his form – and fifteen-year-old Linda in the Oxford High School for girls, of which she maintained fond memories of the navy blue uniforms and fit in quite well, aside from her difficult Latin classes. Peter Pauling had just started his first term at Caltech, but was able to keep up with his studies overseas by studying independently with tutoring from an American Rhodes Scholar. Linus Pauling, Jr had just married Anita Oser – the great-granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller and Cyrus Hall McCormick – and the young couple remained in the States while the family embarked on their adventure.

Linus, Peter, Crellin, Linda and Ava Helen Pauling, 1947.

The excitement started for the Pauling children before they even boarded the Queen Mary and set sail for England on December 26.  During the holiday period, New York City was experiencing its worst snowstorm in years and it was the first time the three sunny California natives had seen the snow. Despite the marvels of the winter wonderland, the family really was stuck, and it was only by a stroke of luck (and some extra cash up front) that the Paulings were able to convince a taxi driver to push his way through to the docks and get them to their ship on time. They celebrated New Year’s Eve on the boat and in an interview Linda recalled that the members of the Canadian Ski Team, who were also on the same Atlantic voyage, were dancing with her all night – that is, until they found out that she was only 14!

Linus Pauling must have spent some time during the journey across the sea in introspective thought, for it was during this trip that he wrote his famous pledge, on the back of a piece of cardboard announcing one of his lectures: “I hereby make avowal that from this day henceforth I shall include mention of world peace in every lecture and address that I give.”  This pledge was just the first of many important moments in Pauling’s life that would occur as a result of his time in England.

Around the House

Ava Helen and Linus Pauling with Tyl Eulenspiegel, Pasadena, 1957.

I recall…Linus Pauling on a Sunday morning reading all of the ‘funny papers’ published in the Los Angeles area.  I suspect that he follows all of the comic strips published in America.

-W. H. Latimer, 1951

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[In his later years] my father would go to bed after watching the news, about 6:30 or 7:00, [and] read until 9:00.  When he woke up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning he’d get up and cook his breakfast and get to work.  I asked him, how did he go to sleep?  And he said he’d take the cube root of some number between 8 and 27.  The first digit is obviously 2….I never asked him whether he had a snazzy way or some algorithm; I’d do it by trial and error, but it doesn’t work for me.

-Peter Pauling, 1997

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Usually I eat two eggs in the morning, sometimes bacon, but I happen to be lazy enough not to cook more than one thing for a meal.  The last two days I was eating oxtail soup with vegetables.  I don’t know what I’ll have today.  Perhaps some fish.  In my book [How to Live Longer and Feel Better] I say you shouldn’t eat sweet desserts, but I also quote a professor who says that this doesn’t mean that if your hostess has made this wonderful dessert you should turn it down.  My wife used to say that I always looked for that hostess.

-Linus Pauling, 1987

Linus Pauling at Deer Flat Ranch, 1987.

Letters to Peter

Linus and Peter Pauling at Warwick Castle, England. 1948.

“You know how children are threatened ‘You had better be good or the bad ogre will come get you.’ Well, for more than a year, Francis and others have been saying to the nucleic acid people at King’s ‘You had better work hard or Pauling will get interested in nucleic acids.’”

-Peter Pauling. Letter to Linus Pauling, January 13, 1953.

Normally, when Linus Pauling became interested in something, he would dive headlong into it. Hours and hours of his time, over weekdays and weekends, would be committed to research in pursuit of fleshing out every last useful detail. This arduous process is best illustrated by his work on the nature of the chemical bond, work which would later win him a Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Pauling’s experience with DNA, however, was not an example of this typical approach.

First, it should be noted that Pauling did not have years to spend working on DNA. Its importance was fully realized in the summer of 1952, less than a year before Watson and Crick elucidated its structure, and although Pauling actually began studying nucleic acids as early as 1933, he wasn’t able, or willing, to spend a significant amount of time on a molecule that was perceived to be relatively unimportant.

Even after learning of the importance of DNA, Pauling still didn’t make time for it. As emphasized in earlier posts on Linus Pauling and DNA, Pauling remained very much preoccupied with his work on the nature of proteins.

An examination of Pauling’s correspondence with his son Peter – a man uniquely positioned in the middle of the DNA story – reveals that other matters, many of them trivial, also took precedence over Pauling’s pursuit of the structure of DNA.

In the fall of 1952, Peter Pauling, an aspiring crystallographer and the second oldest of the four Pauling children, began his graduate studies at the University of Cambridge. Coincidentally, James Watson and Francis Crick were also at Cambridge at this time, and not long after his arrival, Peter had met them, become an office-mate, and was spending off-hours time with the duo.

Because Linus Pauling and the Watson-Crick tandem were both attempting to solve the structure of DNA, Peter’s arrival at Cambridge gave his father an excellent opportunity to keep tabs on the work being done by his competitors in England. A close examination of the voluminous father-son correspondence from this era suggests, however, that DNA was far from a pressing topic in Pasadena.

Also, as to your curtains: will you check the dimensions and let us know. You say in your letter two windows 6’ 6” high, 50” and 37” wide respectively, in other words four curtains each 48” wide. Mama thinks that you probably mean four curtains each 36” wide. It would be hard to get the wider material.

Also, would you write us as to the exact points between which the vertical dimensions are measured. What is the distance from, say, the top of the window frame (or some other exactly specified locus) to the floor, and also to the bottom of the window frame? Mama thinks that probably the curtains should reach all the way to the floor, but in any case they should extend from the top of the window frame to the bottom of the window frame (if you have window frames), or from a point a little below the opening at the bottom. She suggests that one of your old curtains might serve for one of the windows, and that she would then have to make only a pair for the larger window.

I sympathize with you about the bed. I remember sleeping on a bed which had a two by four across under my ear; it was not very comfortable.

-Linus Pauling, letter to Peter Pauling, October 22, 1952.

Linus first wrote to Peter in England on October 22, 1952. By this time, the elder Pauling was well aware of the importance of DNA, but had not yet devised a structure. Watson and Crick, on the other hand, had developed a structure for DNA a year earlier. Although their model turned out to be incorrect, the two men continued their work with nucleic acids. Clearly, for Watson and Crick, DNA was becoming extremely important. For Pauling this did not appear to be the case – although Watson and Crick were both mentioned in this first letter, DNA was not.

As it turns out, other subjects – including, but not limited to, curtains for Peter’s new apartment, recent travels and upcoming travel plans, finances, and, of course, cars – were much more prevalent than was DNA in the Paulings’ early correspondence.

As time went on, nucleic acids naturally became a slightly larger topic, though never did they assume center stage. Take, for example, this letter sent from Linus to Peter on February 4, 1953. By the time of its authoring, Linus Pauling had completely developed his structure, and had also sent off his manuscript for publication, a development which merited one paragraph worth of description. The rest of the letter is used to discuss, in great detail, Pauling’s plans to travel to England and also his keen interest in purchasing a new Riley from the U.K.-based International Motors. (Being something of a family obsession, cars were a very popular subject in many of the letters between Linus and Peter.)

In another letter from Pauling to Peter written on March 10, 1953, DNA plays a much larger role. This time, about half of the three-page document is dedicated to discussing various aspects DNA; the remainder focuses on travel plans and automobiles.

Peter Pauling, December 1954.

The other letters follow this same trend. Clearly, Linus and Peter’s lengthy discussions on subjects such as cars, traveling, curtains, and other aspects of science suggest that Pauling wasn’t interested in DNA on the level of certain other scientific pursuits.

Another interesting aspect of the correspondence between Linus and Peter Pauling is the opportunity that it provides for tracking the evolution of the consensus response to Pauling’s structure.

As might be expected, Peter’s reaction stayed upbeat throughout all of their letters. However, as time progressed, it is clear that Peter became less-confident that his father had solved DNA. For example, in a few of the earlier letters, Peter mentions that Watson and Crick earlier devised and discarded a structure similar to the Pauling-Corey triple helix, but that the opinion at the Cavendish Laboratory is that Pauling’s structure is a good one, albeit “pretty tight.”

From that point on though, Peter begins talking less about Pauling’s structure, and more about work being done by Watson, Crick, and Rosalind Franklin. One might deduce that, although Peter didn’t specifically issue a disagreement with his father’s structure, he did develop a certain degree of skepticism as time progressed. Peter also does not often mention other opinions of his father’s structure, most likely because, upon further examination, it was not well-received by the English contingent.

Peter Pauling Discusses His Father’s Strengths and Personality

For more information on DNA, please visit the Race for DNA website. For more information on Linus Pauling, check out the Linus Pauling Online portal.

Linus Pauling and the Mystery of Anesthesia: Part I

Linus Pauling holding models of the structure of water. 1960s.

[Part 3 of 5]

Throughout his career, Linus Pauling’s inquisitive nature was widely recognized as a defining trait, second only to his legendary self-confidence. Indeed, it was his curiosity and analytical thinking style that made him the ideal problem solver. As a child, he spent his free time experimenting with pilfered chemicals, reading books on the manufacture and workings of machinery, studying scientific tables and categorical charts (searching for anomalies, one presumes) and devising logical explanations for the real-world phenomena he witnessed. In his later years, he read hundreds of mystery novels and compulsively reviewed newspaper and magazine articles for grammatical and factual errors. And, somewhere along the way, he managed to revolutionize the modern understanding of chemistry, in the process becoming one of the greatest scientists in history.

Because of his love for puzzles and conundrums, and his confidence in his own ability to find reason in chaos, Pauling was always on the lookout for new and difficult projects. It was this desire for a challenge that led him to synthesize chemistry and physics, research the structure of DNA, and eventually discover disease-causing molecular mutations. And, in 1952, it caused Pauling to take an interest in anesthesia.

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pauling served as one of twelve scientists on the Scientific Advisory Board for Massachusetts General Hospital. In accordance with his duties, in December 1951, Pauling attended a meeting of the advisory board in Boston. During this meeting, Henry K. Beecher, an anesthesiologist later known for his work in medical ethics, gave a talk on xenon as an anesthetic. Pauling was baffled by Beecher’s findings because he knew that xenon, due to its full electron shell, is highly unreactive. According to conventional logic, xenon should have had virtually no biological effect because of its atomic stability.

Following the conference, Pauling took the problem to one of his sons, Peter, an aspiring chemist in his own right. Peter, however, was unable to shed any light on the problem. Still curious, Pauling began to think about the problem in earnest, using his free time in the evenings to meditate over the dilemma. For several weeks, he considered the problem, turning over the implications in his mind. Despite the effort, he simply couldn’t tease out the answer with what little information he had on hand.

Notes RE: Anesthesia, ca. January 1960.

In 1952, Pauling became interested in methane hydrates and chose to begin a small-scale research program to study the properties of related compounds. He assigned Dick Marsh, a graduate student at Caltech, to the problem of manufacturing and studying chlorine hydrates. By combining chlorine with chilled water, Marsh was able to create the hydrates which he then subjected to x-ray photography.

The results were interesting. The chlorine molecules formed an ice-like tetrahedral cage around the water molecules, effectively trapping and freezing the entire unit. Pauling realized that, like chlorine, xenon was capable of forming hydrates. It followed that, if xenon hydrates were created in the brain, they would block the flow of ions through their lipid channels, essentially freezing all communication in the brain and rendering the subject unconscious. The brain tissue itself is approximately 78% water, providing more than enough liquid to allow for hydrate formation. Pauling estimated that as little as 10% of the water in the brain would need to be incorporated into hydrate molecules to result in insensitivity to pain and unconsciousness.

As promising as this hypothesis seemed, it possessed one glaring flaw:  A xenon hydrate becomes unstable and deteriorates at only two or three degrees above the freezing point of water. The human body’s native temperature is approximately three times that necessary to decompose xenon hydrates. Because of this, Pauling realized that hydrates couldn’t possibly explain xenon’s strange effect on the body.

Pauling was forced to accept that, without undertaking his own research program on noble gases, he would be unable to develop a solution to the xenon predicament. He laid the problem aside, assuring himself that he would return to it in due time.

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

In 1954, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and his life became a whirlwind of activity. Overnight, he became a staple on the university lecture circuit, gave scores of interviews, and began applying his new-found fame to the peace movement. What time he had left was spent supervising graduate students and applying for grants at Caltech, leaving little opportunity for scientific research.

Nevertheless, the xenon question was not forgotten. In 1957, Pauling gave three lectures on the chemical bond which were filmed by the National Science Foundation and distributed to institutions around the country. In his second lecture, Pauling enumerated a revision of his 1952 theory on xenon hydrates, suggesting that they might be stable up to ten degrees above the freezing temperature of water. Even still, the revision wasn’t enough to make hydrates viable at body temperature. What Pauling needed was a breakthrough, something that would fundamentally change how he thought about the hydrate-temperature interaction.

According to Pauling, that breakthrough came in April of 1959 while he was reading a paper on alkylamonium salt, a crystalline hydrate resembling the protein side chains found in the brain. The paper claimed that alkylamonium salt, a clathrate similar to the xenon hydrates, was stable up to 25º C (77º F). Pauling realized that the dodecahedral chambers contained within the alkylamonium hydrate structure were strikingly similar to those formed in xenon hydrates. He hypothesized that xenon atoms introduced into the bloodstream could become trapped in the alkylamonium hydrate, thereby stabilizing the structure and raising its heat tolerance to approximately 37º C (98.6º F), thus preventing the hydrate from decomposing at body temperature.

Pauling suggested that once the alkylamonium hydrate crystals had formed with the xenon, they would prevent normal electrical oscillations and block the flow of ions in the brain, inducing anesthesia. Furthermore, the hydrates would gradually dissipate, in the process allowing the anesthetized brain to resume normal functioning. In short, Pauling had found the key to a new, seemingly workable hypothesis which would soon be referred to as the “Hydrate Microcrystal Theory of Anesthesia.”

Click here to view our previous posts on Linus Pauling and the theory of anesthesia. For more information on Pauling’s life and work, please visit the Linus Pauling Online Portal or the OSU Libraries Special Collections homepage.

The Watson and Crick Structure of DNA

Francis Crick and James Watson, walking along the the Backs, Cambridge, England. 1953.

Today, our series on models of DNA is concluded with a discussion of the correct structure determined by James Watson and Francis Crick. Although they made an unlikely pair, the two men succeeded where one of the era’s leading scientists – Linus Pauling – failed, and in the process they unraveled the secrets of what may be the most important molecule in human history.

In the fall of 1951, James Watson was studying microbial metabolism and nucleic acid biochemistry as a postdoctoral fellow in Europe. It didn’t take long for him to tire of these subjects and to begin looking for more inspiring research. He became interested in DNA upon seeing some x-ray photos developed by Maurice Wilkins. He then tried to talk his way into Wilkins’ lab at King’s College, but was denied and ended up studying protein x-ray diffraction in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Here he was assigned space in an office to be shared with an older graduate student named Francis Crick, a crystallographer. At the time, Crick was studying under Max Perutz, and was also becoming bored with his research. Watson and Crick hit it off immediately and before long, Watson’s interest in DNA had worn off on Crick. Although neither of them were experts in structural chemistry, they decided to attempt to solve the structure of DNA. As Watson put it, their planned method of attack would be to “imitate Linus Pauling and beat him at his own game.”

The pair’s first attempt at the structure in the fall of 1951 was very quick, and also unsuccessful. Interestingly, however, it was quite similar to Linus Pauling and Robert Corey‘s own attempt about a year later. Watson and Crick came up with a three stranded helix, with the base rings located on the outside of the molecule and the phosphate groups found on the inside. This left them with the problem of fitting so many negatively charged phosphates into the core without the molecule blowing itself apart. In order to solve this problem, they turned to Pauling’s own The Nature of the Chemical Bond. They were looking for positive ions that would fit into the core of DNA, therefore canceling the negative charge. They found magnesium and calcium to be possibilities, but there was no significant evidence that these ions were in DNA. However, there was no evidence against it either, so they ran with the idea.

Watson and Crick assumed – as would Pauling in his later attempt – that the finer details would fall into place. Overjoyed at solving DNA so quickly, they invited Wilkins and his assistant, Rosalind Franklin, to have a look at their structure. Expecting praise, they were undoubtedly surprised when Franklin verbally destroyed their work. She told them that any positive ions found in the core would be surrounded by water, which would render them neutral and unable to cancel out the negative phosphate charges. She also noted that DNA soaks up a large amount of water, which indicates that the phosphate groups are on the outside of the molecule. All in all, Franklin had no positive feedback for Watson and Crick.  And she was, at it turned out, correct. After the visit, Watson and Crick attempted to persuade Wilkins and Franklin to collaborate with them on another attempt at the structure of DNA, but their offer was declined.

Diagram of the double-helix structure of DNA. August 1968.

When Sir William Lawrence Bragg, the head of the Cavendish laboratory, heard about Watson and Crick’s failure, he quickly sent them back to other projects. Almost a year passed with Watson and Crick accomplishing no significant work on DNA. Although they weren’t building models, DNA was still at the front of their minds and they were gathering information at every opportunity. In the fall of 1952, Peter Pauling, the second eldest of Linus and Ava Helen Pauling’s four children, arrived at Cambridge to work as a graduate student. Jerry Donohue, another colleague of Pauling’s from Caltech, also arrived at the same time and was assigned to share an office with Watson and Crick. As a result, Peter also fell in with the group. Therefore, as the quest for DNA progressed, Linus Pauling was provided with a general idea of Watson and Crick’s work with DNA through contact with Peter. However, the opposite also proved true.

When Pauling and Corey submitted their manuscript on the structure of DNA in the last few days of 1952, Peter passed on to Watson and Crick the news that his father had solved DNA. Although the two men were crestfallen by this information, they decided to soldier on with their own program of research, figuring that if they published something at the same time Pauling that did, they might at least be able to share some of the credit.

Around this time, the pair added an important piece of information that they had learned from Erwin Chargaff, a biochemist. He had told them that the four different base rings in DNA appeared to be found in pairs. That is, one base ring is found in the same relative amounts as another. This first correlation constitutes one pair, and the remaining two bases make up the other pair. Interestingly enough, Chargaff had also told Pauling this same thing in 1947. However, Pauling had found him to be annoying and, as a result, disregarded his tip. Chargaff’s information did, however, prove to be crucial for Watson and Crick, who were slowly piecing together the basics of the DNA structure.

When Watson and Crick finally received Pauling’s manuscript via Peter in early-February 1953, they were surprised – not to mention elated – to see a structure very similar to their own first attempt. Bragg, a long time competitor of Pauling’s, was so pleased to see Pauling’s unsatisfactory work that he allowed Watson and Crick to return to DNA full time. The pair wasted no time, and had soon spread the news about Pauling’s model to all of Cambridge. Watson even told Wilkins about the manuscript, and was rewarded with the permission to view Franklin’s most recent DNA x-ray patterns. These beautifully-clear photos immediately confirmed Watson’s suspicion that DNA was a helix, adding yet another piece of important information.

Based on all of the information that they had gathered, Watson and Crick began rapidly building models. One model, which Watson called “a very pretty model,” contained the wrong structures for two base rings. Fortunately, Donohue, who was an excellent structural chemist, set them right. After his correction, Watson and Crick noticed that hydrogen bonds would form naturally between the base pairs. This explained Chargaff’s findings, and also showed the potential for replication of the molecule. The rest of the model came together quickly, and Watson and Crick began to write up their structure.

Eventually, Linus Pauling began to catch wind of the recent work that Watson and Crick had been doing with DNA. His first actual glimpse of their work came in March 1953 when Watson sent a letter to Max Delbrück, a colleague of Pauling’s, that included a brief description and rough sketches of the structure. Although Watson had asked Delbrück not to show the letter to Pauling, Delbrück could not resist. Pauling marveled at the simplicity and functionality of the structure, but still retained confidence in his own structure. Only a few days later, Pauling received an advance copy of the Watson and Crick manuscript, but he was still not convinced they had solved DNA. In April, Pauling finally traveled to England, and only after seeing the model in person and comparing it to Franklin’s DNA photographs was he certain that Watson and Crick had solved the structure of DNA.

On April 25, 1953, Watson and Crick’s article, “A Structure for DNA” was published in Nature. James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins would go on to share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 1962 “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.” Unfortunately, Rosalind Franklin died of cancer at age 37 and, for many years, was given only minor credit for her considerable contributions related to the discovery of the DNA structure.

For more information on Watson and Crick and DNA, please visit the website Linus Pauling and the Race for DNA: A Documentary History. For more information on Linus Pauling and his research, visit the Linus Pauling Online Portal.

The Pauling Catalogue: A Few Reviews

Linus Pauling, age 17.

[Part 9 of 9]

“[The Pauling Catalogue] constitutes an invaluable resource for historians of science and chemistry, scholars of science policy, and advocates of the peace movement, along with practicing chemists and scientists interested in the history of their fields, especially during the 20th century. It belongs in every academic library.”

George B. Kauffman, California State University, Fresno. The Chemical Educator, (2007): 12, 4, Media Reviews.
http://chemeducator.org/bibs/0012004/12070303mr.htm

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Ava Helen and Linus Pauling, Jr., 1926.

“The catalog is ideal for historians of science, and is engaging for browsing by chemists, students, and general readers….Highly recommended.”

A. Viste, emeritus, Augustana College. CHOICE, 45-0288, (September 2007).

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Linus and Crellin Pauling at the Huntington Gardens, San Marino, California, 1939.

“For the illustrations alone, nearly twelve hundred of them, anyone interested in Pauling’s life should buy the catalogue . . .”

Jack Dunitz, ETH-Zürich, Switzerland. Bulletin for the History of Chemistry, Vol. 33, No. 1 (2008): 45-46.

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Peter Pauling and two friends, 1940.

“[Pauling's] concern for the humanitarian and ethical consequences of scientific discovery add an extra dimension of analysis for historians of science. It is fitting that his archivists have now published one of the finest catalogs for the papers of an individual scientist….The Pauling Catalogue is well worth the $125 purchase price and is a must-have for any Pauling researcher or university library.”

Gregory J. Morgan and Emily A. Jones, Spring Hill College. Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 41, No. 2 (June 2008): 403-406.

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Ava Helen and Linus Pauling at home, 1957.

“Perhaps one of the largest personal archives in the world, the collection contains Pauling’s extensive scientific papers on structural chemistry, molecular biology, and nutrition.  The collection also documents the Paulings’ long-standing and mutual devotion to world peace, civil liberties, and nuclear nonproliferation — a devotion that led Linus to become the recipient of two unshared Nobel prizes…”

Patrick Shea. Chemical Heritage Newsmagazine, Winter 2007/8, Vol. 25, No. 4.
http://www.chemheritage.org/pubs/magazine/review_peterson.html

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Linus Pauling harvesting abalone, 1963.

“One can go on, picking raisins from a rich cake — six rich cakes containing many thousand raisins and plums.  It must be made clear; the Catalogue is not a biography, far from it.  For that the best offering is probably still Thomas Hager‘s 1995 Force of Nature: The Life of Linus Pauling, but it provides an immense amount of information about Linus Pauling and his times and will be the invaluable source of material for future biographies, especially those that will be written when we, the people who knew Pauling, listened to him, and learned from him, have passed on.”

Jack Dunitz, Bull. Hist. Chem., 2008.

Linus Pauling on his deck at Deer Flat Ranch, Big Sur, California, 1987.

The Pauling Catalogue

The Pauling Catalogue is available for purchase at
http://paulingcatalogue.org