Pauling Amidst the Titans of Quantum Mechanics: Europe, 1926

Erwin Schrödinger and Fritz London in Berlin, Germany, 1928.

[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 overthrow of a dynasty through revolution, but rather the abdication of an old and feeble king in favor of his young and powerful son.”

-Linus Pauling, “The Development of the Quantum Mechanics,” February 1929.

Since 1925 the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has annually awarded fellowships to promising individuals identified as advanced professionals who have “already demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.”  The selection process is extremely competitive and recipients are generally esteemed in their chosen field as applicants face rigorous screening and are selected based on peer recommendation and expert review.

Since the first awards in 1925, many Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners have received Guggenheim Fellowships including, but not limited to, Ansel Adams, Aaron Copland, Martha Graham, Langston Hughes, Henry Kissinger, Paul Samuelson, Wendy Wasserstein, James Watson and, of course, Linus Pauling.

As one of the program’s earliest honorees, Pauling was awarded his first Guggenheim fellowship in 1926.  Heeding the advice of his mentors, Pauling had applied for the fellowship in hopes of pursuing an opportunity for international study.  Pauling’s advisers had long been insisting that he go to Europe to study alongside the leading experts in the budding field of quantum physics, and the Guggenheim funding provided Pauling with the opportunity to do just that.  It was this fellowship that allowed Pauling to travel abroad in order to learn from the European geniuses of quantum physics and to later become one of the early American pioneers of the new field of quantum mechanics.

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Linus and Ava Helen Pauling’s apartment in Munich, Germany. 1927.

“The subject of quantum mechanics constitutes the most recent step in the very old search for the general laws governing the motion of matter.”

–Linus Pauling and E. Bright Wilson, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, 1935.

The mid-1920s – the time during which Pauling was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim fellowship – was an exciting period to begin an exploration of quantum theory.  The tides were dramatically shifting in this field of study and the acceptance of the old quantum theory was rapidly declining.

Linus and Ava Helen left for Europe on March 4, 1926, arriving in Europe in the midst of what was a great quantum theory reform.  At the inception of quantum theory, physicists and chemists had attempted to apply the classical laws of physics to atomic particles in an effort to understand the motion of and interactions between nuclei and electrons.  This application was grossly flawed as the classical laws, such as Newton’s laws, were originally generated to represent macroscopic systems.   Theorists soon discovered that the classical laws did not apply to atomic systems, and that the microscopic world does not consistently align with experimental observations.

A series of breakthroughs by prominent theorists in the early- to mid-1920s accelerated the decline of the old quantum theory.  In 1924 Louis de Broglie discovered the wave-particle duality of matter, and in the process introduced the theory of wave mechanics.  Then in 1925, just one year before Pauling began his European adventure, Werner Heisenberg developed his uncertainty principle and thus began applying matrix mechanics to the quantum world.

In 1926, shortly after the Paulings arrived in Europe, Erwin Schrödinger combined de Broglie’s and Heisenberg’s findings, mathematically proving that the two approaches produce equivalent results.  Schrödinger then proceeded to develop an equation, now know as the Schrödinger Equation, that treats the electron as a wave.  (The Schrödinger Equation remains a central component of quantum mechanics today.)  The adoption of wave and matrix mechanics led to the development of a new quantum theory and the overwhelming acceptance of a burgeoning field known as quantum mechanics.

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Arnold Sommerfeld and Ava Helen Pauling in Munich, Germany. 1927.

“Where the old quantum theory was in disagreement with the experiment, the new mechanics ran hand-in-hand with nature and where the old quantum theory was silent, the new mechanics spoke the truth.”

–Linus Pauling, February 1929

Pauling began his work in Munich at Arnold Sommerfeld‘s Institute for Theoretical Physics, a scholarly environment described by biographer Thomas Hager as “a new wave-mechanical universe for Pauling.”  It was this atmosphere that opened the door for Pauling to leave his mark as a pioneer of quantum mechanics.

In the fall of 1926, Pauling began applying the new quantum mechanics to the calculation of light refraction, diamagnetic susceptibility, and the atomic size of large, complex atoms.  Through these types of applications, Pauling developed his valence-bond theory, in the process making significant advancements in the new field of quantum mechanics and expanding our understanding of the chemical bond.