Linus Carl Pauling, 28 February 1901 - 19 August 1994

• Published in: Biographical memoirs of fellows of the Royal Society 1996-11, Vol.42, p.317-338
• Main Author: Dunitz, Jack David
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Ascorbic Acid - history; Atoms; Biochemistry; Chemical bonding; Chemistry - history; Crystal structure; Crystals; History of medicine; History, 20th Century; Humans; Molecular Biology - history; Molecular structure; Molecules; Orbitals; Pauling; Politics; Quantum mechanics; United States; Vitamin C; Vitamins - history
• ISSN: 0080-4606; 1748-8494
• DOI: 10.1098/rsbm.1996.0020

Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on 28 February 1901 and died at his ranch at Big Sur, California on 19 August 1994. In 1922 he married Ava Helen Miller (died 1981), who bore him four children: Linus Carl, Peter Jeffress, Linda Helen (Kamb) and Edward Crellin. Pauling is widely considered to be the greatest chemist of this century. Most scientists create a niche for themselves, an area where they feel secure, but Pauling had an enormously wide range of scientific interests: quantum mechanics, crystallography, mineralogy, structural chemistry, anaesthesia, immunology, medicine, evolution. In all these fields and especially in the border regions between them, he saw where the problems lay, and, backed by his speedy assimilation of the essential facts and by his prodigious memory, he made distinctive and decisive contributions. He is best known, perhaps, for his insights into chemical bonding, for the discovery of the principal elements of protein secondary structure, the alpha-helix and the beta-sheet, and for the first identification of a molecular disease, sickle-cell anaemia, but there are a multitude of other important contributions. Pauling was one of the founders of molecular biology in the true sense of the term. For these achievements, Pauling was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But Pauling was famous not only in the world of science. In the second half of his life, he devoted his time and energy mainly to questions of health and the necessity to eliminate the possibility of war in the nuclear age. His active opposition to nuclear testing brought him political persecution in his own country but was finally influential in bringing about the 1963 international treaty banning atmospheric tests. With the award of the 1962 Nobel Prize for Peace, Pauling became the first person to win two unshared Nobel Prizes (Marie Curie won one and shared another with her husband). Pauling’s name is probably best known among the general public through his advocacy, backed by personal example, of large doses of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) as a dietary supplement to promote general health and prevent (or at least reduce the severity) of such ailments as the common cold and cancer. Indeed, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling are probably the only scientists in our century whose names are known to every radio listener, television viewer or newspaper reader.