Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement

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Pauling, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content=""A couple of days after my talk, there was a man in my office from the FBI saying, 'Who told you how much plutonium there is in an atomic bomb?' And I said, 'Nobody told me, I figured it out.'" In the late 1940s, few Americans had any idea what the long-term effects of nuclear radiation might be, and their government wasn't telling them. Dr. Linus Pauling had already won renown for his application of modern physics to the problems of chemistry when he took on the unpopular task of informing the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons. Pauling endured ostracism and ridicule for his uncompromising stand, but went on to win two Nobel Prizes: the 1954 award for Chemistry and the1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the open-air testing of nuclear weapons. To the end of his 93 years, Linus Pauling devoted himself to the cause of world peace, to the struggle against disease, and to educating the public about a multitude of health issues, from the hazards of smoking to the benefits of vitamin C. Pauling's work as a chemist would have been sufficient to earn him an honored place in the history of science, but his humanitarian efforts made him a beloved figure around the world."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"/> <meta name="googlebot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <meta name="bingbot" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"A couple of days after my talk, there was a man in my office from the FBI saying, 'Who told you how much plutonium there is in an atomic bomb?' And I said, 'Nobody told me, I figured it out.'"</p> <p class="inputText">In the late 1940s, few Americans had any idea what the long-term effects of nuclear radiation might be, and their government wasn't telling them. Dr. Linus Pauling had already won renown for his application of modern physics to the problems of chemistry when he took on the unpopular task of informing the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons.</p> <p class="inputText">Pauling endured ostracism and ridicule for his uncompromising stand, but went on to win two Nobel Prizes: the 1954 award for Chemistry and the1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the open-air testing of nuclear weapons. To the end of his 93 years, Linus Pauling devoted himself to the cause of world peace, to the struggle against disease, and to educating the public about a multitude of health issues, from the hazards of smoking to the benefits of vitamin C. Pauling's work as a chemist would have been sufficient to earn him an honored place in the history of science, but his humanitarian efforts made him a beloved figure around the world.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2018-05-07T17:40:43+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/pauling-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/pauling-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/","name":"Linus C. 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/pauling-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/pauling-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/pauling-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prizes in Chemistry and Peace</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-2958 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-chemist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I have always liked working in some scientific direction that nobody else is working in.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">The Power of Imagination</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 28, 1901 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 19, 1994 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, where his parents encouraged his scientific interests from the beginning. When Linus’s father died, his mother found it difficult to support the large family. Linus was an able student and won scholarships to Oregon State University at Corvallis, but he had to work long hours as a laborer to support himself while he earned his Bachelor of Science degree. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, the institution where he taught and carried out his research for the next 33 years.</p> <figure id="attachment_28339" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28339" style="width: 1779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-28339 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-28339 lazyload" alt="1922: Linus Pauling's graduation photo from Oregon State University." width="1779" height="2497" data-sizes="(max-width: 1779px) 100vw, 1779px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922.jpg 1779w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922-271x380.jpg 271w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922-541x760.jpg 541w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28339" class="wp-caption-text">June 1922: Linus Pauling’s graduation photo from Oregon State Agricultural College (later to become Oregon State University) where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. In September, Pauling arrives at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and becomes James Bell’s teaching assistant in general chemistry.</figcaption></figure> <p>The young scientist first made his mark in the world of chemistry with his use of X-rays to examine the molecular structure of crystals. This work led him to a more thorough investigation of the nature of the chemical bond. Pauling revolutionized chemistry in the 1920s with his application of quantum physics to the study of chemistry. He used the new theory of wave mechanics to explain molecular structures which had baffled chemists for years. Pauling’s resonance theory proposed that some molecules “resonate” between different structures, rather than holding a single fixed structure. This insight made possible the creation of many of the drugs, dyes, plastics and synthetic fibers we take for granted today. Pauling publicized his findings in a series of papers culminating in an essential work of modern chemistry: <em>The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_28354" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28354" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-28354 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-28354 lazyload" alt="1920s: The Pauling Family: Linus, Ava Helen, and Linus Jr. (Donald Jenkins)" width="2280" height="2913" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_-297x380.jpg 297w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_-595x760.jpg 595w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28354" class="wp-caption-text">1927: The Pauling Family: Linus, Ava Helen, and Linus Jr. On June 17, 1923, Linus Pauling marries Ava Helen Miller in Salem, Oregon. On March 10, 1925, Linus Pauling, Jr., the Paulings’ first child, is born. (Credit: Donald Jenkins)</figcaption></figure> <p>Dr. Pauling next turned his attention to the study of organic substances, particularly proteins. By 1942, Pauling and his colleagues had succeeded in producing synthetic antibodies, a major breakthrough. In 1945 Pauling was co-chairman of a project which developed a substitute for blood plasma. In 1949, he performed a groundbreaking study of sickle cell anemia, a disease which disproportionately affects men and women of African descent. In 1951, Pauling and Robert B. Corey described the atomic structure of proteins for the first time. This work had enormous implications for the struggle against disease.</p> <figure id="attachment_28362" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28362" style="width: 2778px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28362 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28362 size-full lazyload" alt="Linus Pauling (second from right) with colleagues at California Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" width="2778" height="2162" data-sizes="(max-width: 2778px) 100vw, 2778px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363.jpg 2778w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363-380x296.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363-760x591.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28362" class="wp-caption-text">Linus Pauling with colleagues at California Institute of Technology. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)</figcaption></figure> <p>The detonation of the first atomic weapons in 1945 posed an ethical dilemma for Pauling. The more he studied the effects of radiation, the more he became convinced that a nuclear war, or even the continued atmospheric testing of these weapons, could do irreparable damage to the environment and the human population. Because the government was attempting to conceal the dangers of nuclear testing from the public, Pauling believed it was his duty to speak out, but in the first years of the Cold War, many Americans considered such dissent treasonous. Pauling could not remain silent. In books, interviews and press conferences, he educated the public about the hazards of radiation and campaigned for peace, disarmament and the end of nuclear testing. These activities cost him friends, funding for his research, and the job he had held at Caltech for 33 years.</p> <figure id="attachment_28335" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28335" style="width: 894px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28335 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28335 size-full lazyload" alt="1954: Peter, Crellin and Linus Pauling Jr. with their father at the Nobel ceremonies, Stockholm." width="894" height="1242" data-sizes="(max-width: 894px) 100vw, 894px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w.jpg 894w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w-274x380.jpg 274w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w-547x760.jpg 547w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28335" class="wp-caption-text">1954: Peter, Crellin and Linus Pauling Jr. with their father at the Nobel Prize ceremonies in Stockholm, Sweden.</figcaption></figure> <p>The State Department revoked Pauling’s passport, but when he won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1954 and was unable to leave the U.S. to accept it, the pressure of world opinion forced the Department to relent. Pauling continued his peace activism, and in 1957 drafted a petition calling for an end to the atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons. By the time Pauling delivered his petition to the UN, he had collected the signatures of 11,021 scientists from all over the world. This campaign led to a Nobel Peace Prize for Pauling in 1962, and to the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.</p> <figure id="attachment_28350" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28350" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28350 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28350 size-full lazyload" alt="1964: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling standing in front of their home." width="2280" height="1606" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_-380x268.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_-760x535.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28350" class="wp-caption-text">1964: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling standing in front of their home on a bluff overlooking the Pacific in Big Sur, CA.</figcaption></figure> <p>Linus Pauling remained active in anti-war movements, but he won even greater fame for his studies of the role of nutrition in fighting disease. His 1970 book, <em>Vitamin C and the Common Cold</em>, recommended megadoses of vitamin C to ward off colds and lessen their symptoms. Millions of people now follow this advice. Pauling’s theory of “orthomolecular” substances and his views concerning the potential role of vitamin C in fighting cancer have not won wide acceptance in the medical community, but many researchers have followed where he led in studying the role of vitamins and other nutrients in preserving health and fighting disease.</p> <figure id="attachment_28352" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28352" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28352 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28352 size-full lazyload" alt="1975: Linus Pauling receiving the National Medal of Science from President Ford. Pauling won the award "for the extraordinary scope and power of his imagination, which has led to basic contributions in such diverse fields as structural chemistry and the nature of chemical bonding, molecular biology, immunology, and the nature of genetic diseases."" width="2280" height="3380" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_-256x380.jpg 256w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_-513x760.jpg 513w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28352" class="wp-caption-text">1975: Linus Pauling receiving the National Medal of Science from President Gerald Ford. He won the award “for the extraordinary scope and power of his imagination, which has led to basic contributions in such diverse fields as chemistry and nature of chemical bonding, molecular biology, immunology, and the nature of genetic diseases.”</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1973, Dr. Pauling founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine. From this base, he continued his research and worked to educate the public about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of vitamins. He received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal for Merit and the National Medal of Science. He published books for the general reader on a variety of subjects, from one of his first, <em>No More War, </em>to one of his last, <em>How to Live Longer and Feel Better.</em></p> <p>Linus Pauling died on August 19, 1994, at the age of 93.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1979 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.chemist">Chemist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 28, 1901 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 19, 1994 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">“A couple of days after my talk, there was a man in my office from the FBI saying, ‘Who told you how much plutonium there is in an atomic bomb?’ And I said, ‘Nobody told me, I figured it out.'”</p> <p class="inputText">In the late 1940s, few Americans had any idea what the long-term effects of nuclear radiation might be, and their government wasn’t telling them. Dr. Linus Pauling had already won renown for his application of modern physics to the problems of chemistry when he took on the unpopular task of informing the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons.</p> <p class="inputText">Pauling endured ostracism and ridicule for his uncompromising stand, but went on to win two Nobel Prizes: the 1954 award for Chemistry and the1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the open-air testing of nuclear weapons. To the end of his 93 years, Linus Pauling devoted himself to the cause of world peace, to the struggle against disease, and to educating the public about a multitude of health issues, from the hazards of smoking to the benefits of vitamin C. Pauling’s work as a chemist would have been sufficient to earn him an honored place in the history of science, but his humanitarian efforts made him a beloved figure around the world.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/a8maetlPd8Q?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_13_15_06.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_13_15_06.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">The Power of Imagination</h2> <div class="sans-2">Big Sur, California</div> <div class="sans-2">November 11, 1990</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Quite early in your career, you made historic discoveries concerning the nature of the chemical bond. Could you explain the background of this work for us?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: After the electron was discovered in 1896, and the nucleus of the atom — an extremely small part of the center of the atom — was discovered in 1911, it became possible to determine many properties of molecules, such as how far apart the atoms are. That hadn’t been available for experimental study before. X-ray diffraction was one of the methods. I was fortunate in being able to use this essentially new experimental technique discovered in 1914, eight years before I became a graduate student, in attempting to answer many questions that I had formulated about chemical substances and their properties. And yet, they had only experimental answers to them.</p> <p>The next important development was that…</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/IcTxp-VBY9k?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_15_54_03.Still018-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_15_54_03.Still018-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The theory of quantum mechanics was discovered in 1925 and 1926. This was an improvement on the old quantum theory. The old quantum theory was an approximate theory which sometimes worked in a very remarkable way, and sometimes failed. But quantum mechanics — so far as chemistry is concerned — quantum mechanics is the basic theory, and there is nothing wrong with it. It works.</p> <p>I realized in 1926 already that quantum mechanics could be applied to answer many additional questions about the nature of the chemical bonds, the structure of molecules and crystals. So, during the next ten years I was able to apply quantum mechanics to chemical problems in very productive ways, changing the whole basic nature of chemistry in such a way that essentially all chemists make use of these new ideas, along with the old structural chemistry that had been developed much earlier.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_28365" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28365" style="width: 1924px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28365 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28365 size-full lazyload" alt="Linus Pauling" width="1924" height="2504" data-sizes="(max-width: 1924px) 100vw, 1924px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424.jpg 1924w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424-292x380.jpg 292w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424-584x760.jpg 584w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28365" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Linus C. Pauling, chemist, biochemist, peace activist, educator and author of 1,200 papers and books.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>It must be very exciting to be involved with something that you realize, at least later, is a turning point, the opening of a door for scientists and researchers to walk through into a new area of discovery.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Yes. Someone asked me, not long ago, what was the discovery I made that excited me the most? And I answered that it was the basic discovery about directed chemical bonds that I made in January of 1931. I had published a paper in 1928, two years after I began learning quantum mechanics, in which I said that from quantum mechanics, by a treatment that I call “the resonance theory,” I could explain the tetrahedral nature of the bonds of the carbon atom, and that I would publish details later. Nearly three years went by before I published the details.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/oRxuUfk4BTA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_59_40_26.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_59_40_26.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>In 1928, I was working with the quantum mechanical calculations — which were very complicated mathematically — and I managed to derive the result that the carbon atom would form four bonds in tetrahedral directions, but it was so complicated that I thought, “People won’t believe it. It is so hard to see through this mass of symbols and equations and relationships that they won’t believe it. And perhaps I don’t believe it either!” It took a long time for me to simplify the quantum mechanical equations so that they were very easily applied to various problems. So around January 19, 1931, late in the day, I had this idea. I can use a simple method of simplifying a power method of simplifying these equations. Then I can apply these simplified equations to various chemical problems. So I worked nearly all night, very excited about applying this idea. I not only can easily derive the tetrahedral arrangement of the bonds of the carbon atoms, but also various other arrangement of atoms around a central atom, not only tetrahedral, but also octahedral ligation, and square planar ligation, which does occur with certain substances. And I did make predictions about relationships between magnetic properties and the arrangements of the atoms around each other. I considered that paper, which was published 17th of March, 1931, as my most important paper, and I believe I am right in saying that it is the one that developed the greatest feeling of excitement in me.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_28367" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28367" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28367 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28367 size-full lazyload" alt="Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" width="2280" height="1819" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426-380x303.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426-760x606.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28367" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Could you tell us something about the obstacles you’ve encountered along the way?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/k3OSAjx_pHQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_08_19_16.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_08_19_16.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Linus Pauling: So far as my scientific career goes, of course, there was the decision that I made in 1945 — ’46 perhaps, but starting in 1945 — and that may have been made by my wife rather than me, to sacrifice part of my scientific career to working for control of nuclear weapons and for the achievement of world peace. So for years I devoted half my time, perhaps, to giving hundreds of lectures and to writing my book <em>No More War</em>, but in the earlier years especially to studying international affairs and social, political and economic theory, to the extent that it enabled me ultimately to feel that I was speaking with the same authority as when I talked about science. This is what my wife said to me back around 1946. If I wanted to be effective, I’d have to reach the point where I could speak with authority about these matters and not just quote statements that politicians and other people of that sort had made.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_28347" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28347" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28347 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28347 size-full lazyload" alt="1954: Linus Pauling pointing to a molecular model. (Oregon State University Library. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)" width="2280" height="2894" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_-299x380.jpg 299w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_-599x760.jpg 599w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28347" class="wp-caption-text">1954: Linus Pauling pointing to a molecular model. (Oregon State University/Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>What was it that first got you interested in becoming an activist in the social and political sense?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/hMAGxq6UpQI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_26_41_28.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_26_41_28.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Linus Pauling: When the atomic bomb was dropped at Hiroshima, and then at Nagasaki, I was immediately asked, within a month or two, by the Rotary Club perhaps in Hollywood, to give a talk, an after-dinner talk about atomic bombs. My talk, as I recall, was entirely on what the atom is, what the atomic nucleus is, what nuclear fission is, how it’s possible for a substance to be exploded, liberating 20 million times more energy than the same amount of dynamite or TNT liberates. A couple of days after my talk, there was a man in my office from the FBI, saying, “Who told you how much plutonium there is in an atomic bomb?” And I said, “Nobody told me, I figured it out.” And he went away and that was the end of that. But, I kept giving these talks and I realized that more and more I was saying, “It seems to me that we have come to the time when war ought to be given up. It no longer makes sense to kill 20 million or 40 million people because of a dispute between two nations who are running things or decisions made by the people who really are running things. It no longer makes sense. Nobody wins. Nobody benefits from destructive war of this sort and there is all of this human suffering.” And, Einstein was saying the same thing, of course. So that’s when we decided — my wife and I — that first, I was pretty effective as a speaker. Second, I better start boning up, studying these other fields so that nobody could stand up and say, “Well, the authorities say such-and-such a thing…”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_28348" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28348" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28348 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28348 size-full lazyload" alt="1957: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling working on a petition against nuclear testing." width="2280" height="1998" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_-380x333.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_-760x666.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28348" class="wp-caption-text">1957: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling working on a petition against nuclear testing at home in Pasadena, California.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>What goal did you have in mind when you started to speak out about nuclear weapons?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/R_HlZStCGaI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_14_31_06.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_14_31_06.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, back in 1945, my first talks were just pedagogical. I was just explaining nuclear fission. Then I began rather gradually expressing the opinion that the time had come to work for international treaties and international law to settle disputes rather than to use the barbaric method of war, made especially barbaric by the nuclear weapons. So, I was working toward the goal of a world without war. But, I didn’t ever think that I would attain the sort of prominence and so forth that I have obtained. The McCarthy period came along, of course — 1950, ’51, ’52 — and the others, many of the other people who had been scientists who had been working on these same lines, gave up. Probably saying, “Why should I sacrifice myself? I am a scientist. I am supposed to be working on scientific things, so I don’t need to put myself at risk by talking about these possibilities.” And, I have said, perhaps I’m just stubborn. I don’t like the idea. I have said, “I don’t like anybody to tell me what to do or to think, except Mrs. Pauling.”</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>I ran across that statement in some testimony I was giving before a Senate committee. I said, “Nobody tells me what to think, except Mrs. Pauling.”</p> <figure id="attachment_28336" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28336" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28336 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28336 size-full lazyload" alt="1958: "Fallout and Disarmament," a televised debate between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller. Originally presented on KQED-TV, San Francisco. Reprinted in pamphlet form. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1958, 13 pp." width="600" height="945" data-sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w.jpg 600w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w-241x380.jpg 241w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w-483x760.jpg 483w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28336" class="wp-caption-text">1958: <em>Fallout and Disarmament</em>, a televised debate between Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Edward Teller. Originally presented on KQED-TV, San Francisco. Reprinted in pamphlet form. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 13 pages.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>You took the information that you saw, and the concerns that you had, and you organized scientists. Tell us about the petition that you circulated in 1958 and why you began that.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I had been talking about the need to control nuclear weapons, to prevent a nuclear war and to make treaties for world peace for a dozen years by 1957.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZHmcCD4zycU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_06_50_20.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_06_50_20.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was asked to speak at the honors convocation at Washington University in St. Louis. During the preceding months there had been additional information released about damage done by radioactivity from testing of nuclear weapons, and by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. So, my talk was about that. It got a tremendous response from the audience when I said, “We have to stop the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere because hundreds of thousands of unborn children and people now living are being damaged.” So with two other professors, Barry Commoner and Ted Condon, I decided to write a petition. The next day we met, each of us had written a version of the petition, and I think mine was, essentially, the one selected by the three of us. We sent immediately, mimeographed it, and sent it out to 25 scientists that we knew. They all sent it right back, signed. So then I got back to Pasadena and my wife and I and some of our students and other people in the lab got busy and sent out hundreds of copies with the names of these first 25 signers — or perhaps there was 25, the three of us and 22 others. And, within a month or two I had 2,000 signatures from American scientists which I presented to Dag Hammarskjold. Scientists from all over the world began signing this petition. Originally, it was a petition by American scientists, but then it became a petition by world scientists. I think it was about 9,000 signatures that I gave, my wife and I gave to Dag Hammarskjold, and ultimately, about 13,000 scientists all over the world had signed this petition. So, that had a great effect, and I think even on President Kennedy, because a few years later he gave a speech about a need for a treaty limiting bomb testing and of course pretty soon this treaty was made.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_28366" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28366" style="width: 2170px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28366 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28366 size-full lazyload" alt="Dr. Linus Pauling in the 1950s. (Courtesy of Niels Bohr Library, Uhlenbeck Collection)" width="2170" height="2782" data-sizes="(max-width: 2170px) 100vw, 2170px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425.jpg 2170w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425-296x380.jpg 296w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425-593x760.jpg 593w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28366" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Linus Pauling, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, in the 1950s. (Niels Bohr Library, Uhlenbeck Collection)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Your views and actions came under a great deal of scrutiny during that period, and a great deal of suspicion. Would you talk about that period?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, it was a difficult period. For example, my scientific work was in considerable part supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. I got a communication that these grants were not going to be made, despite the letter I received two months before that the grants <em>were</em> going to be made.</p> <p>For a while I didn’t understand what it was about, and I telephoned the National Institutes of Health, and the man that I talked to said, “You have associates, why don’t you split up the application. You can apply for part of the work, and your associates, Dr. Corey and Dr. Campbell, can apply for other parts.” So we did that, and we sent in these revised applications. In another week Dr. Corey and Dr. Campbell had their grants approved, even the amount increased and the period extended, but they never acted on my application.</p> <p>I was fortunate that this political action by the National Institutes of Health, who were worried about McCarthyism, didn’t seriously interfere with my researches. But there were, I understand, 40 scientists who had their grants canceled at this time. I remember talking with one of them at Columbia University. He was despondent. He didn’t know what to do. The university wouldn’t support him, and his work was more closely knit. He didn’t have an associate who could apply for the grant.</p> <p>So there were scientists who were really very hard hit in their scientific work by this political action. Oveta Culp from Texas, who was Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, was frightened enough by McCarthy to have the people go over the list and select people they thought might be attacked by McCarthy, and cancel their grants. That was one thing that happened.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/x8DcsiXiekM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_44_30_15.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_44_30_15.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The State Department prevented me from traveling for two years. The first time, when the Royal Society of London was holding a two-day conference to discuss my work, I was to be the first speaker [to discuss] work on the structure of protons, an international conference just to discuss these discoveries that I had made. And, I couldn’t go to the conference because I couldn’t get the passport. So for two years, the State Department caused trouble for me. They wouldn’t tell me why. They said “Not in the best interest of the United States,” or “Your anti-Communist statements haven’t been strong enough.” I was having a scrap with the Communists — the Russians and the Soviet Union — at the time, and I was critical of the Soviet Union, but they used that as an excuse, saying they weren’t strong enough, my statements. I’m sure this interfered seriously with my work. When I was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em> had an article saying, “Will Professor Pauling be allowed to go to Stockholm to receive this Nobel Prize?” So I received the passport, which had been turned down only a short time before. It was sent to me.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Senator Hennings of Missouri was chairman of a committee in the Senate, investigating the State Department’s passport division. The Assistant Secretary of State was testifying after I testified. Senator Hennings said, “How did Pauling happen to get his passport then? Was there an appeal?” They said, “A sort of self-generating appeal.” So Senator Hennings said, “Do you mean to sit there and tell me that the State Department of the United States of America allows some committee of foreigners in a foreign country to decide which Americans will be allowed to travel?” Well, he didn’t have any answer to that question.</p> <figure id="attachment_28360" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28360" style="width: 2750px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28360 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28360 size-full lazyload" alt="Linus Pauling with co-worker at California Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" width="2750" height="2204" data-sizes="(max-width: 2750px) 100vw, 2750px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361.jpg 2750w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361-380x305.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361-760x609.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28360" class="wp-caption-text">Linus Pauling with a co-worker at the California Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>You had some difficulties in the academic world too. Caltech didn’t look kindly on some of your activities.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: The trustees, of course, were mainly business men, and conservative, and supporters of the Cold War, and they seemed to consider that working for peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union was in some way subversive, as compared with preparing for a war that would rid the world of the menace of communism. Probably socialism worried them rather than communism.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z2DCGCQ1DQc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_00_37_19.Still021-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.00_00_37_19.Still021-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The trustees tried to get the Institute to fire me and a committee was set up — I didn’t know about it at the time, learned only later they reported that they couldn’t find a way by which I could be fired. I wasn’t guilty of moral turpitude in the usual sense, which was one way in which a professor can lose his job. So they began sort of harassing me. I was chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. The president said, well, that’s one job they could take away from me which would mean a decrease in salary. I didn’t mind. I had served in that position for 22 years and felt that I had done my duty with respect to that administrative job. But, they began interfering with my research projects and I decided that I was going to have to leave the Institute.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>When I received word that I had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I found, when I returned to Pasadena, that the president had stated to the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> that it was pretty remarkable for any person to receive two Nobel Prizes, but there was much difference of opinion about the value of the works that Professor Pauling had done. So I decided that the time had come for me to resign, and I did. I didn’t like that. I had been at the California Institute of Technology for 41 years then, and I thought it was really the best institution in the world. My opinion of it is still a very high one. With respect to science, it comes close to being the best university in the world. So I wasn’t happy about leaving the Institute, but I did leave.</p> <p><strong>Did anyone at Caltech express any regrets about this?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: The Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering did not hold a party to celebrate my getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Whereas, they had held one when I got the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. But, the Biology Division did hold a party for me. The biological scientists, I think, were more sympathetic to what I was saying about damage done by fallout radioactivity and carbon-14 than the physical scientists. I was, I think to some extent, disappointed that my colleagues in the Institute did not express sympathy with me in this situation.</p> <p><strong>Did you have any discussions with any of them on a one-on-one basis about that?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I’m not sure that I can remember. Beadle, the chairman of the Biology Division, had been a member of the committee to recommend to the trustees whether they could fire me or not, and he told me about it some years later. I don’t remember when it was that he told me about it. I note that he was, in a sense, sympathetic to me. There were many people at the Institute that I considered my friends, and perhaps if they are still alive, still consider them my friends. But it was a difficult period, so I can’t complain about their not being open in expressing sympathy for me.</p> <figure id="attachment_28355" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-28355" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28355 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429im_/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-28355 size-full lazyload" alt="Chemist and Nobel Prize-winner for the second time, Dr. Linus C. Pauling, with a model of a collagen on his desk. (Photo by Don Cravens/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" width="2280" height="1704" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10.jpg 2280w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20200917235429im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10-760x568.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429/https://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-28355" class="wp-caption-text">Chemist and Nobel Prize-winner for the second time, Dr. Linus C. Pauling, with a model of a collagen on his desk.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Do you think the scientist in particular has an obligation to be engaged in those kinds of activities?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, yes. I have said this for many years. Almost every problem in the modern world has some scientific content, sometimes very great scientific content. For example, the argument going on now about the destruction of the ozone layer, or the nuclear winters if there were to be a nuclear war. That seems no longer to be an important matter. I think the chance of having a nuclear war is much less than it was before. Or the greenhouse effect with an increase in temperature of the earth.</p> <p>But all minor problems too, the ecological problems, they are largely scientific problems. And while scientists may not be able to decide what the best course is to follow, nevertheless, I think their judgment has to be a little better about these problems than that of the non-scientist. I have said that the scientist has an obligation to his fellow citizens to help them to understand the problems and to make the right decisions.</p> <p><strong>You were a pioneer in the field of molecular biology, but you encountered resistance and criticism again when you began to write about vitamins and disease.</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200917235429if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/l_Ko4z0uTpA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_15_20_18.Still017-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Pauling-Linus-1990-ORIG-AUDIO.01_15_20_18.Still017-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I wrote my book <em>Vitamin C and the Common Cold</em> in 1970, August 1970, sitting mainly there in this room. I thought, you know, everybody will be happy to have this book that tells about how to keep from suffering with the common cold. The doctors will be happy, they won’t be pestered by patients with this minor problem the way they are now. They can concentrate on more serious diseases. And, what happened? A month later, <em>The Medical Letter</em> published an attack on me for having written this book. And, all the other medical… <em>Modern Medicine</em> published an attack on me for a whole lot of things. I wrote to the men, the editor of <em>Modern Medicine,</em> and said, “You remember that <em>Modern Medicine</em> gave me the Modern Medicine Award four or five years ago for my work on sickle cell anemia. And, here you are attacking me.” And, then I went up and said, “I want you to publish this retraction.” And, I wrote a very abject retraction on all the points, and they published it just the way I had written it, retracting. I’ve been astonished at the response of the medical profession to orthomolecular ideas.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Did you find this resistance to your views on orthomolecular medicine annoying? Do you get angry about it?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I don’t think so. It’s not in my nature. It didn’t occur to me back in 1946, when I was saying — in what I thought was a completely logical way — that the time had come to give up wars between the great nations. They are counter-productive now, nobody benefits. They are so destructive that nobody benefits, so we better be sensible. And here I get attacked! So you’d think I’d learn after a while to not be surprised.</p> <p><strong>What experiences or events do you think had the greatest impact on your life?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I think that meeting the young woman whom I married a year-and-a-half later was the event that had the greatest effect on my life. I can see in retrospect, she felt that her duty was to see to it that her husband lived as good a life as possible. And in particular, that she would handle the problems and stresses associated with family, leaving me free to devote all of my time and effort to working on the problems that I wanted to work on, the scientific problems.</p> <p>I’ve been asked from time to time, “How does it happen that you have made so many discoveries? Are you smarter than other scientists?” And my answer has been that I am sure that I am not smarter than others. I don’t have any precise evaluation of my IQ, but to the extent that psychologists have said that my IQ is about 160, I recognize that there are 100,000 or more people in the United States that have IQs higher than that. So I have said that I think I think harder, think more than other people do, than other scientists. That is, for years, almost all of my thinking was about science and scientific problems that I was interested in. So I owe much of this to my wife.</p> <p><strong>To go back to the beginning, how did you first become interested in science?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: When I was 11 years old, I became interested in insects — entomology. And for a year I read books about insects and collected specimens of butterflies and beetles in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. When I was 12, I became interested in rocks and minerals. I couldn’t collect very many; where I was wasn’t a good source of minerals except agates, but I read a great deal about minerals. Then when I was 13, I became interested in chemistry in these remarkable phenomena in which one substance is converted into another substance, or two substances react to produce a third substance with quite different properties. Then when I was 18, in 1919, when I was teaching quantitative analysis full time at Oregon Agricultural College for one year between my sophomore and junior years, I read the papers of Irving Langmuir in the <em>Journal of the American Chemical Society, </em>in 1919 and went back to G.N. Lewis’s 1916 paper. These papers dealing with the nature of the chemical bond, the role of electrons in holding atoms together interested me very much. That has been, essentially, the story of my life ever since.</p> <p><strong>Did you read an enormous amount as a young boy?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: My father, when I had just about reached my ninth birthday, wrote a letter to the <em>Portland Oregonian</em>, asking for advice as to what books to get for me. He said that I seemed to have an unusual interest in reading, especially history. Then he went on to say, “And don’t say the Bible and Darwin’s <em>Origin of Species</em>, because he has already read them.” Well, I think I can remember reading the Bible at an early age, but I don’t remember — my father’s word is the only evidence I have — that I had read Darwin’s <em>Origin of the Species</em> before I was nine years old. I did like to read, and my father had some influence on this way of thinking because I used to watch him compounding prescription drugs in the back room of his drug store, and he was interested in teaching me a little medical Latin and other things, so he may have influenced somewhat. I early developed a great curiosity about the nature of the world, the nature of the Universe. So, as time went on, I became more and more interested to learn more by reading about the universe, the world, but also to discover something new.</p> <p><strong>As I understand it, your first interest in chemistry came when you were a young boy and a friend of yours got a chemistry set.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, I don’t think chemistry sets existed at that time. This boy, Lloyd Alexander Jefress, just my age, 13, asked if I would like to see some chemical reactions. He had various chemicals that he had gotten perhaps at the drug store, and he carried out some reactions. That interested me very much.</p> <p>I don’t know whether shortly after Lloyd Jefress showed me these experiments, I decided that I would be a chemist. It may have been a year or two later. When I was 15 or 16, Lloyd Jefress and I were visiting my grandmother in Oswego, Oregon, and she said to me, “What are you going to be when you grown up, Linie?” And I said, “I am going to be a chemical engineer.” Lloyd Jefress, who became a leading psychologist later on, said, “No, he isn’t. He is going to be a professor.”</p> <p>But I went on and got my bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at Oregon Agricultural College because I didn’t know that there were such people as professional chemists. They didn’t have advisers about your choice of profession in schools at that time. I knew about chemical engineering, so I thought that was the way I could earn my living and still be doing chemistry.</p> <p><strong>What did your parents think of this? Did they encourage you?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: My father died when I was nine, shortly after he had written this letter, and my mother was not very interested in ideas, I think, in intellectual matters. I don’t remember any general discussions held in the family with my mother. The aunt and uncle of Lloyd Jefress, this young fellow who was my best friend for many years — in fact, all of his life essentially — were intellectuals. They weren’t university people, but they were interested in ideas, and I learned something about ideas from them. They were influential in my life in that when I was 16, in June I got a job in a machine shop. And every time I received my paycheck, my salary had been increased. So by the end of the summer, I was getting pretty good pay for a 16-year-old.</p> <p>My mother was having so much financial trouble as a widow with three children that she was hoping I would continue in the machine shop and continue to bring a salary. Lloyd Jefress’s aunt and uncle, however, were determined that I should go on to college, and they convinced me that it was my duty that I go on to college. It didn’t require much money. There was no tuition at Oregon Agricultural College. My mother, for the first six months at any rate, sent me 25 dollars a month that I was able to live on, and then she couldn’t send it and I had some trouble the next three months getting by. But from then on I was able to earn my living and even help my mother out somewhat.</p> <p><strong>We understand you worked your way through school. One of the jobs you had was as a road inspector, wasn’t it?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, I would be called a paving engineer now. It was called paving plants inspector. I was responsible for the quality of the bituminous pavement that was laid by the contractor for the state. Later on I worked for Warren Construction Company. Warren Construction Company wanted me to stay with the company and not go on with my education. I did that for five summers, and my thing about it was that I had spare time, even during the eight hours that the paving plant was operating, and I could read chemical books and look over the tables of properties of substances and continue to wonder about the possibility of getting a better understanding of these substances and their properties.</p> <p><strong>You’ve mentioned reading books about natural science and history. Did you read any fiction as a young man? Was there anything that captivated you in other ways?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Oh, yes. I read almost any book that I could get hold of. I mentioned to the people in the library at Oregon Agricultural College — Oregon State University — when I was up in Corvallis just recently, that in a sense I owed my general education to the library at Oregon Agricultural College. I can remember many of the books that I read I got from the library in succession. I think all of the plays that Shaw had written, I can remember reading Voltaire’s poems — I studied French in college — and there were many other books. I read the romances; there was one that came out while I was still in high school, <em>The Girl of the Limberlost</em>, or something about some region of the mountains in a southeast country. Just a love story. I rather liked those.</p> <p>I bought the <em>Saturday Evening Post</em> nearly every week if I had a nickel that I could spare, and read the stories in the <em>Saturday Evening Post</em>. One of them, I realized later, had been written by an author who collaborated with a well-known American physicist. It was called <em>The Man Who Rocked the World</em>. The physicist was Wood, professor of physics at Johns Hopkins. Someone had discovered a way to make a substance radioactive, to induce radioactivity. And there was a cliff in Greenland, I think, containing the substance that could be made radioactive by this method. So the plot involved a man having the idea that he would illuminate this cliff in such a way that the radioactive particles were shot out and that could shift the axis of rotation of the earth. So he was using this to blackmail the countries, the people of the whole world, into paying tribute to him.</p> <p>And I remember a series of stories about a boy who had an extraordinary memory. He apparently could recall memories in such a way that he saw the scenes that he had viewed at some earlier time. So he was called in to help solve problems such as discovering a criminal by recalling a scene and pointing out some features that weren’t in his conscious memory before. I learned later this is called eidetic memory, when you can see a scene as though it were on a television screen in your mind. I read everything I could get my hands on about it.</p> <p><strong>What interested you so much about the story of the boy with the amazing memory? Something to do with your curiosity about the world?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Yes. The boy was called Marcus Aurelius Fortunatus Todd, and I suppose I identified with him, being the hero, providing the solution to a problem. But it’s something like reading detective stories, which I liked to do. Early science fiction, <em>Argosy </em>magazine, mainly sort of adventure stories, but some of them could be called early science fiction. And, of course Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.</p> <p><strong>Which of Wells’s stories did you like the most?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I can’t say which I liked the most at the time I read them. I probably liked all of them, but of course I’ve re-read them since then. <em>The War of the Worlds</em>, for example. I think that was the one in which these flying machines came over at the tremendous height of four hundred feet above the ground and dropped bombs or threatened to drop bombs. I remember one of his stories where there were large speakers at the street corners for advertising, saying, “Buy Glaxo cold medicine and control your cold,” and things like that! He anticipated many developments just as did the other writers of science fiction.</p> <p>I have given up reading novels, romantic novels because it seems to me there is nothing new. I have read it all before, and I am no longer very interested anyway. And the same thing is true of science fiction stories. It seems to me the plots of the new science fiction stories are all plots that I have run across before.</p> <p><strong>Looking back on your childhood years and early college years, is there anything you would have done differently?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I was fortunate. I don’t think there is anything that I would have done differently. I regret that my mother was having so much financial trouble, and I could answer by saying that I should have gone on in the machine shop business and helped my mother more. Actually, I did borrow a thousand dollars from my uncle in order that the elder of my two sisters could have a year at Oregon Agricultural College. I don’t think she liked it very well. She was a very smart person, and she may have been handicapped by not having much money too.</p> <p><strong>In working yourself through school, were there some things that you learned? Did you get a perspective that you would have missed if your family had been more fortunate financially?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, I’m sure that I got in the habit of working, and not being lazy, not wasting my time. In the third term of my freshman year, when my mother was no longer sending me money, I was able to make 25 dollars a month — which was barely enough for me to get by with — by working 100 hours a month chopping wood and cutting up quarters of beef for the girls’ dormitory. Chopping wood for the wood burning stoves in the kitchen of the girls’ dormitory and cutting the beef for them and mopping the kitchens every night. And, in order to do this, to work 100 hours a month at a job for 25 cents an hour and to keep up with my studies, it was necessary that I not waste any hours during the day. So, I think I developed the habit of working.</p> <p>My success in solving scientific problems I think is the result of two qualities that I have. One is that of being able to formulate or discover problems. The other is that of being able to make a decision as to what problems I might be able to solve, and which I probably will not be able to solve, so that I don’t waste time on those.</p> <p><strong>Do you have any idea how you developed those traits?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, I have some idea. As the years have gone by, starting quite early, I realized I tried to formulate a picture of the universe. In a sense, a theory of everything. Whenever I hear something new, I try to fit it into the picture that I have already formed of the universe. If it fits in, well and good, I don’t need to worry about it. But, if it doesn’t fit in, then I ask, “Why doesn’t it fit in with my ideas about how the universe ought to be operating?” I’d better try to find the answer to that. So, then I can ask, “How well is my background of knowledge and experience, such that I have a reasonable chance of finding the answer?” And if it isn’t, then I say, “Well, perhaps someone else will make some progress with that idea, but I better go on with the others.” So, I have lots of ideas. I do a lot of scientific reading, and quite often, every week perhaps, I read about something that someone is reporting that puzzles me. So I have a big pile of questions of this sort that I would like to settle down to work on.</p> <p><strong>Who was a big influence on you as a young man?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, by the time I got to graduate school, there were people who had a great influence on me. One was Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson. He had got his doctorate in physical chemistry — x-ray crystallography — in 1920. He was the first person to get a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology. And he was continuing with x-ray crystallography, determining the structure of inorganic crystals. After I had accepted appointment as a graduate student at California Institute of Technology, A.A. Noyes, the head of the division of chemistry and chemical engineering, wrote to say that he had decided I should work with Roscoe Dickinson on determining the structure of crystals.</p> <p>This was really extremely fortunate for me, in my opinion. I don’t think that there was any field that was more suited to my interests, and I don’t really know why Dr. Noyes selected me out of eight or ten new graduate students to do x-ray crystallography. Dickinson had a remarkable mind. He was a very careful investigator and thinker, a very logical thinker. When he was teaching me x-ray crystallography, he also taught me to ask at each stage in the argument, “What assumptions are being made? How reliable is the conclusion that you draw? What chance is there that one of the assumptions you have made is not correct?” “You should recognize,” he said to me, “that there is in almost every investigation a lack of complete rigor. You should understand just how reliable the arguments are that you are presenting.”</p> <p>Then starting immediately that I became a graduate student, there was a professor of physical chemistry and mathematical physics in the California Institute of Technology who was very influential with me, Richard Chase Tolman, who had been at MIT and at Berkeley, and then came to California Institute of Technology. He immediately began giving a course of the basis of science. A very interesting course in which he discussed the question of how science is in fact prosecuted. He introduced some new ideas about physics, which has turned out not to be right. He also began giving a course on quantum theory and atomic structure, using the book, <em>The Origin of Spectra</em>, by Foote and Muller.</p> <p>The next year I studied quantum theory. This was the old quantum theory, of course, in those years. I studied quantum theory with Tolman in a seminar in which (Arnold) Sommerfeld’s book on quantum theory and atomic structure was used as the text. One year it was the German edition because there was no English edition, and the next year the English translation. Tolman made a great impact on me in regard to physical and chemical theory. Those two people, I think, were probably most important in the early period of my career.</p> <p><strong>It sounds like they not only imparted knowledge to you, but also gave the tools to work with for the rest of your scientific career.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Yes. The experimental work that I did in x-ray crystallography was not especially complicated in the way that some modern experiments are. But I was at least a passable experimenter. I was good in the laboratory, making chemical compounds and crystallizing them. So I got along all right. My work as a whole has been about half experimental and half theoretical, which I think is a good combination.</p> <p><strong>You did a great deal of work on the molecular basis of disease. What led you in that direction?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: In 1935, after I had worked on the structure and the basic principals determining the structure of inorganic compounds, including minerals and simple organic compounds, I began work on hemoglobin and other very large molecules in the human body. By 1948, I discovered the alpha-helix and the pleated sheets, the basis, the principal ways of folding polypeptide chains and proteins. It was an important discovery.</p> <p>In 1945 I had the idea about molecular diseases, and this started a field of medicine, a class of diseases called hemoglobinopathies. It had not been known before my discovery of the hemoglobinopathies that you could have diseases of molecules, these large molecules of the human body. So it was an important contribution. I decided after working on the hemoglobinopathies for several years to shift to mental disease, and reported some new ideas about anesthesia, and about schizophrenia and other diseases. In 1968 I published my first two papers introducing the adjective “orthomolecular.” These were about orthomolecular psychiatry and orthomolecular medicine in general.</p> <p>Orthomolecular medicine is the adjustment of the amount of orthomolecular substances in the human body to achieve the best of health and the smallest incidence of disease and provide the best additional methods even of treating disease.</p> <p>Orthomolecular substances, I said, are substances that are normally present in the human body and are required for life. Some of them we make for ourselves in the liver, say, or in other cells in the body. Some we have to get in our foods or in vitamin supplements or other dietary supplements.</p> <p>The remarkable thing about orthomolecular substances, such as vitamins, there are many others, is their astonishingly low toxicity. If a patient with severe arthritis takes ten times as much aspirin as the doctor has prescribed, the patient will be dead. In general, drugs are given in amounts coming close to the amount that will kill a person. I was astonished to learn, some 25 years ago, that vitamins are very powerful substances, in that a little pinch of a vitamin every day is all that you need to keep from dying of scurvy or berri-berri or pellagra or other vitamin-deficiency diseases, but that you can take 1,000 or 10,000 times that much, day after day, without any serious toxicity showing up. No problems with these large amounts. So, I thought, this is something that I hadn’t known before. My picture of the universe did not include these orthomolecular substances — a term that I invented — these orthomolecular substances that have powerful physiological effects but are also essentially non-toxic. So the question comes up in my mind, I know that the authorities recommend an intake, the RDA [Recommended Daily Allowance] of the various vitamins. And, they say this intake will keep most people from showing signs of vitamin deficiency or from dying of vitamin deficiency. So I ask, since you can tolerate very much larger amounts, even 1,000 times larger, what are the amounts that would put me and other people in the best of health? So for over 20 years I have been working on that problem.</p> <p>I think it really offers great opportunities for improved health. People who take these vitamins and other orthomolecular substances in the optimum amounts can live 25 or 35 years longer than otherwise. More than that, they will be free of diseases. This optimum nutrition, with the orthomolecular substances, cuts down the probability of developing cancer, or heart disease or diabetes, or infectious diseases.</p> <p>In general, it gives people much better health than they would have under ordinary conditions, where they are suffering from hypovitaminosis of different kinds, too small amounts of the various vitamins in their bodies. Of course, I had the collaboration of physicians and scientists, but for 25 years, this has been one of my principal interests. I think it may well turn out that my associates and I, along with other people who have had similar ideas in the past, will be credited with having made an extremely important contribution to health, and to the decrease in the amount of suffering associated with increasing age.</p> <p><strong>There has been a lot of positive response to your views on the use of vitamins, but there are still many skeptics, including many people in the scientific community. To what do you attribute that skepticism?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I don’t think that there are many skeptics in the scientific community. Scientists know me from way back. They are in a position to appreciate the significance of anything that I say. It is the MD’s — the physicians — that constitute the problem, with a few exceptions. A few oddball scientists say that I am wrong. It is mainly just the medical establishment that supplies the opposition to orthomolecular medicine. Two books have been written discussing just this problem. One of them is <em>The Vitamin C Controversy</em> by Dr. Ebolene Richards. Another, by Ralph Moss, is called <em>The Cancer Industry</em>. Each of them suggests that the profit motive plays an important part.</p> <p>The drugs that are used to treat cancer and heart disease and other diseases often are sold at very high prices. They run hundreds of millions, hundreds of billions of dollars every year spent on medicine. Much of it goes to the cost of the drugs, which may be several thousand dollars per year per patient, and the cost of paying physicians for their time and paying for the very expensive diagnostic instruments that are used, and so on. And I can understand concern about opposition coming through the treatment of diseases or prevention of diseases by substances that cost almost nothing. Vitamins are very cheap, you know. So the profit motive probably is operating here, even though the medical authorities might deny it.</p> <p><strong>I gather from what you are saying, you don’t feel that there is as much danger of people getting a toxic level of vitamins, as there is a danger of them not having enough in their system to prevent disease.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, there is essentially no danger of damage from overdosage by vitamins. Even the damage from vitamin A, which is always mentioned as the dangerous one, is very small compared with overdoses from drugs. Such over-the-counter drugs as aspirin cause hundreds of deaths per year. Nobody has ever died — possibly one person is known to have died from an overdose of vitamin A. So there is no danger from overdoses of vitamins, essentially. There is a limitation on the amount of vitamin A that is recommended. I have said I think people shouldn’t take more than 25 times the recommended RDA. Now it is said you shouldn’t take more than eight times or ten times the RDA of A. Some people develop headaches if they take 40,000 units of vitamin A per day for long periods of time. That’s all right. You can take betacarotene — which is a precursor of vitamin A, and changes into vitamin A in the human body — without limit. No toxic dose is known for betacarotene.</p> <p>I knew a man who took 130,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day for 13 years to control his cancer — that’s a quarter of a pound of vitamin C a day — so he wouldn’t need to eat so much starch. He could rely to some extent on burning the vitamin C in the cells of his body to provide energy, as well as controlling the cancer. I take 300 times the RDA of vitamin C per day. I have been doing that for years. And I take 80 times of the RDA of vitamin E. I take about ten times the RDA of vitamin A, plus a good slug of betacarotene. I take about 25 times the RDA of the other B vitamins. And I take the recommended amounts as far as minerals too — not large amounts, the recommended amounts. I drink milk every day. I am not one of the people with a deficiency of lactose, the people who get digestive upsets if they try drinking milk, or eat milk products that contain lactose, milk sugar.</p> <p><strong>Do you find the controversy over your views terribly frustrating? You feel that you know what is right, but you still hear people either dismissing it, or saying there are dangers from doing what you think is an excellent way to good health.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: For 17 years — for 16 years starting in 1973, I tried to get the National Cancer Institute to carry out some studies of vitamin C in the prevention and treatment of cancer, without success. They gave us some money once for animal studies, but only once. They turned us down eight times and then I stopped applying to NCI. Last year, I went to see the new director of the National Cancer Institute. He didn’t want to talk to me at first, but he agreed and said that he could spare an hour. He listened to me for three hours. The first two hours he was incensed by my saying I thought it was criminal that the authorities were not paying attention to this really important possibility of controlling cancer. He didn’t like that, but he continued to listen to what I had to say. Finally, after he had said the Mayo Clinic has shown that vitamin C has no value in the treatment of cancer, I said that Mayo Clinic study was a fraud. And I can explain just how. The Mayo Clinic people didn’t follow the procedure that Dr. Ewan Cameron used at all. They say that they did, but they didn’t. We know that they didn’t. So you can’t rely on that. Finally, he became interested.</p> <p>The National Cancer Institute, together with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, sponsored jointly an international conference, held in the fall of 1990 in Bethesda in the National Medical Library Building, at which 40 scientists presented papers on vitamin C and cancer, basic scientific studies bearing on the question of the use of vitamin C in the control of cancer.</p> <p>The National Cancer Institute has now set up a panel of physicians to examine the case histories of the patients that my associate Dr. Cameron has sent to them as having remarkable responses to vitamin C. So it looks hopeful in this respect. The National Cancer Institute is also carrying out studies on the value of increased intake of vitamin C in preventing cancer, an epidemiological study. So things are moving along. I regret that it took 16 years to get the National Cancer Institute interested, but I am pleased now that they are moving ahead.</p> <p><strong>Do you finally feel vindicated, at least to some extent, now that people are taking an interest?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, people have taken an interest for a long time. It is estimated that 40 percent of American families take high doses of vitamin C regularly. A few years ago the amount of vitamin C used in the United States had increased fivefold, and it may be tenfold now. Over the years, I’ve received many hundreds of letters from people thanking me for suggesting vitamin C to control colds, saying they no longer get these colds. And I have gotten hundreds of letters from people, including physicians, asking for more information about vitamin C for controlling cancer, but also sending information about how long they have been able to control their cancer by taking perhaps 36 grams a day, day after day. Or in the case of this one man, a chemist in San Jose working for IBM, taking 130 grams a day.</p> <p><strong>It must be very rewarding to you, in spite of the controversy, to know that people everywhere, when they think they’re catching a cold, they think of vitamin C.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Yes, it is. I’m sure that most scientists accept what I have been saying these years. I wasn’t the first to say it either. Other people had been advocating vitamin C for controlling the common cold and cancer and other diseases back starting 50 years ago. I do feel satisfaction in thinking that I have been able to contribute to this, what I think is a great step forward in the control of disease and the decrease in the amount of suffering.</p> <p><strong>It seems that so many people these days are dying from cancer or suffering from cancer. Has something changed in our world?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: We don’t have good evidence for that. Up to 40 years or 50 years ago, people suppressed the fact that someone had died of cancer. When Arthur Amos Noyes, the head of our chemistry department, died of cancer in 1936, the death certificate said pneumonia. Well, many cancer patients develop pneumonia because they are so debilitated they no longer have any resistance. So in the old days, cancer was not put down as the cause of death. It was thought to be – it was a stigma for a person to develop cancer and die of cancer. So, the old statistics are not of much value. The more recent statistics indicate that the incidence of cancer — the age standardized incidence — has not changed much. Despite all the hullabaloo about the anti-cancer drugs and other new methods, the death rate stays essentially the same.</p> <p><strong>What do you see as the next frontier in this area?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: If I knew the answer, I’d start working on it. So I can tell you what I’ve been doing during the last few months. With my associate Dr. Mattias Wrath, I’ve been working on the problem of what causes cardiovascular disease. What causes atherosclerosis? Dr. Wrath discovered and reported that it is not LDL, low density lipoproteins. He published a paper last year on his studies in blood vessels obtained from patients with bypass operations, and he was able to show with his collaborators that it isn’t the LDL that is laid down in the arteries, but another lipoprotein called lipoprotein LPA, which usually isn’t reported. It is just mixed in with the LDL. He and I have published a paper on the relationship between LPA and vitamin C. The more LPA you have in your blood, the more chance there is of dying of cardiovascular disease. The more vitamin C you are taking, the less LPA in the blood. And it has been known for years that people with low vitamin C levels in the blood have a higher death rate from cardiovascular disease that those with a high level. So Dr. Wrath and I are right now putting the finishing touches on a paper in which we say essentially that cardiovascular disease is caused by a low intake of vitamin C</p> <p><strong>If you were a young person now in the sciences and chemistry, what would you want to go into? What would you suggest people go into?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I think that I was fortunate, by the time I got my doctors degree, in getting a good understanding of physics, basic physics and advanced physics and of chemistry as a whole.</p> <p>I had one short course in organic chemistry, but I’m considered to have made great contributions to organic chemistry. I had no courses in biochemistry, but I’m usually described as “the great biochemist Linus Pauling.” You see, I have made contributions to biochemistry. There were no courses in molecular biology. I had no courses in biology, but I’m one of the founders of molecular biology. I had no courses in nutrition or vitaminology. Why? Why am I able to do these things? You see, I got such a good basic education in the fields where it’s difficult for most people to learn by themselves. Very few people are able to study mathematics by themselves; they need to have it taught. I learned a lot of mathematics, a lot of physics, a lot of chemistry. The chemistry, much of it I might have learned by myself, but when it comes to these other subjects, I was able to learn enough about these other fields just by reading because my basic understanding was so great that I could interpret the sentences that I read. I can read — if I become interested in cardiology say, or in general — I can read books, medical books about heart disease and understand what the authors are saying.</p> <p>So my recommendation to young people, which I have been making for 50 years, is that if you want to go into biology, biochemistry, molecular biology, why don’t you start out by majoring in physics and chemistry and mathematics and then move on later? I recommended 50 years ago to students interested in biology to take the Ph.D. in chemistry, rather than biology, and then get a job in plant physiology or some other field. With your basic understanding you will be able to be successful in this field.</p> <p>Even 50 years ago I was recommending to students in the California Institute of Technology who came to me for advice to do graduate work in chemistry rather than in biology, even if they were interested in biology. They could take some courses in biology, but they could do reading by themselves to learn most of biology. Genetics was already a good science in biology. I recommended taking a course in genetics.</p> <p>So ever since then, I have said to students, if you are interested in science, I think a good thing for you to get is as much training as possible in the basic sciences — mathematics, physics, chemistry, including physical chemistry. And then you can move on into these more applied fields. Many of these fields I consider to be just applied chemistry. Molecular biology is a branch of chemistry, just as biochemistry is a branch of chemistry. Astronomy in some respects is because the astronomers are studying the molecules in interstellar space that show up on the spectrographic studies that they make. And the geologist of course, much of geology depends on minerals, and that essentially is a branch of chemistry.</p> <p><strong>When you look at the controversies of your life, what do they say about how much impact an individual can have?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Sometimes I say you shouldn’t think that your efforts, your demonstration, participation in peace walks or writing letters to members of Congress or to the local newspaper are wasted efforts. You can contribute and you can’t be sure how great your contribution is, but you can contribute, so do it.</p> <p><strong>It brings to mind the controversy surrounding Robert Oppenheimer and the dispute with Edward Teller. You were a bit outside that because you declined to work on the Manhattan Project.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: That’s right. I had known Teller from 1930 and, of course, had much respect for him as a scientist. A very smart fellow, too emotional.</p> <p><strong>Do you have strong feelings from that era when Oppenheimer lost his security clearance, when there was that whole debate over who is and who isn’t a “real” American?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I think it was shocking that the United States government authorities showed so little gratitude to Oppenheimer, the way they did in these hearings. Teller wasn’t the only one who testified against Oppenheimer. There were two or three other scientists, too. And, of course, the main person involved was Strauss. Strauss, a banker, began thinking of himself as a theoretical physicist, and began to be jealous. Strauss was the chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He began to be jealous of Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer of course could be caustic in his criticisms, and I was told the story about a seminar that Teller gave at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer said, “Here, how could you have made such an elementary mistake as the one that you made back…so none of your equations are any good.” Teller felt that he was demeaned by this.</p> <p>I don’t know exactly what occurred, but this is the story that went around. Oppenheimer was unhappy with Teller, in that Teller was brought in to do a part of the job connected with making the atomic bomb, and he just refrained from doing it or refused to do it, so that Oppenheimer had to get someone else in to do the job that Teller was supposed to do.</p> <p><strong>There are a number of people who are great physicists who say that they would have been chemists but found it too difficult.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, Einstein, for example. Einstein, of course, was very smart. In 1931 perhaps, I’ve forgotten which year, Einstein was visiting at Caltech, and I gave a physics seminar on quantum mechanics and chemical structure. Einstein was there sitting in the front row in the physics lecture room. There were reporters there, of course, as usual wherever Einstein was. And at the end, the reporters asked him, “What did you think of Professor Pauling’s talk?” And he said, “It was too complicated for me.” This was published in the Pasadena <em>Star News</em>. Perhaps I did include too much detail for a physicist. Chemists are more interested in the details than physicists are.</p> <p><strong>How do you feel about the contributions you have made? All modesty aside, what do you think are your greatest contributions?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I have answered that question in the past by saying that I think my 1931 paper was the most important of the papers that I have written. There were others, too, that all together changed the science of chemistry. It’s hard to say what practical effect there is of that. How many people have benefited from the fact that chemists are able to work more effectively now than they were before 1930? I don’t know. In a practical sense, stopping the bomb tests. I was not alone responsible for that, but if, for the sake of argument, we say, as in fact the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said,</p> <p>There probably would not have been a bomb test treaty if there hadn’t been somebody doing what I was doing for those years. If the bomb testing had gone on at the same rate for a few more years, it would have meant that millions of children — according to my calculations, which seem to have been essentially in the right order — millions of children, infants, would have been born with gross physical or mental defects that otherwise would not have had the defect and millions of people would have died of cancer at an earlier age than otherwise. So that — to the extent that I was involved — that was, I think, pretty important. The ideas about orthomolecular medicine, I think, have already affected millions of people. So, I feel much surprised by it that I have contributed something to the well being of human beings.</p> <p><strong>As you were building on your discoveries, and you discovered the alpha helix, you just missed being the first person to discover the double helix. Is that right?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: It’s hard to say. For a while I said I didn’t want to make a statement, but more recently I have been saying, perhaps if I had been allowed to go to that meeting in London, which is what people say interfered, perhaps I would have discovered the double helix. I had described it several years earlier, saying that the gene consists of two mutually complementary molecules which, when separated, each could act as a template for the synthesis of the other. And, Watson and Crick knew that and they were using my method by which I had determined the structure of proteins, the alpha-helix and the two pleated sheets in their attack on the double helix, just as I was. I think my wife may have been right in sort of implied criticism — not really implied — afterwards, when she said to me, “If that was such an important problem, why didn’t you work harder at it?”</p> <p>As I look back, my feeling is that I didn’t work very hard at it. I have to admit, I sort of had the feeling that I didn’t need to work very hard, that I would probably discover it in the course of time, as a structure of the nucleus. So, this was a sort of hubris, I suppose, the sort of feeling that I was better than I really am.</p> <p><strong>In all this time, did you ever worry about failing?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I don’t think so. I never got involved in a race. You know, I have said I wasn’t in a race with Watson and Crick. They thought that they were in a race with me. My feeling was that it wasn’t a race. I wasn’t working very hard on the DNA problem, I was doing other things, too. And, I probably did have a sort of feeling that sooner or later I would work out the DNA puzzle.</p> <p>As I look back, and think of what I am doing now, that I have always liked working in some scientific direction that nobody else is working in, such that I don’t really have any competition.</p> <p>When I was working in the effort to understand the structure of proteins, I was doing it by a method that nobody else used, which was to think about proteins in relation to the principals about chemical bonding that I had laid down in my book, <em>The Nature of the Chemical Bond</em>. It turned out, of course, that other people were working on the same problems, but not by the same method. In Cambridge, England, Sir Lawrence Bragg and his collaborators John C. Kendrew and Jean Baptiste Perrin published a long paper on helical structures of polypeptide chains. All the structures were wrong. They had not used the principles in my book, and they had a more difficult problem than I had, of course, but I succeeded in finding the alpha helix and the pleated sheet structures. I was apt to be the only person attacking that problem on the basis that I was using.</p> <p>Now recently, I have been trying to determine detailed structures of atomic nuclei by analyzing the ground state and excited state vibrational bends, as observed experimentally. From reading the physics literature, <em>Physical Review Letters</em> and other journals, I know that many physicists are interested in atomic nuclei, but none of them, so far as I have been able to discover, has been attacking the problem in the same way that I attack it. So I just move along at my own speed, making calculations, and I don’t worry about someone else publishing their results a month before I publish mine.</p> <p>I never have been involved in the sort of race that we read about from time to time, the race for a Nobel Prize when there are two groups, each struggling to get ahead of the other one in making a discovery that they think will bring them the Nobel Prize.</p> <p>For one thing, my work that brought me the Nobel Prize for chemistry, I didn’t think myself was of Nobel caliber, in that Nobel, in his will, referred to “the greatest single discovery or invention made in the preceding year.” I thought that the discoveries I made in the period 1927 to 1937 altogether constituted a considerable advance in our understanding, but I couldn’t think of a “single discovery.” Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi wrote to me, saying that he was going to nominate me for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This, I think, people are not supposed to do. So what should he say was the discovery that I had made? I thought about it for a while, and I wrote back and said I thought he should say the discovery of hydrogenation of bond orbitals. That’s the one thing in the 1931 paper that I would say is more important than any of my other ideas. I don’t know what he did, if he did nominate me. But the Nobel committee apparently decided they could lump all of my discoveries together and say, “For his work on the nature of the chemical bond.”</p> <p><strong>In a more general sense, including your personal and professional life, how much control does a person have over his or her future?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I think life it apt to be full of surprises. My feeling is, first, about a young person. How can a young person be happy? I think a good way of increasing the probability of leading a happy life is to do two things. First, to think about what you’d like to do, whoever you are, what you like to do, and then see if you can make your living doing it. Second, look around, keeping your eyes open and your brain working and find somebody of the opposite sex with whom you enjoy talking and with whom you can get along. Get married young and stay married. So, those are the two ways in which I believe young people can be doing something wise to determine, to some extent at any rate, the nature of their future lives.</p> <p><strong>That, and take plenty of vitamin C, and they will be on the right track.</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, there is no doubt about that. There are health practices that can be followed. If you want to lead a miserable life, all you need to do is start smoking cigarettes. I think that we ought to be doing something more than we are doing to control the cigarette smoking habit. I don’t think that abolishing tobacco is the way to do it. That is, to have the government pass a law against tobacco. But to have the government subsidizing the tobacco industry, seems to me the wrong thing to do.</p> <p><strong>Looking back over your career, you became a famous person, someone who got a great deal of attention in public. What effect did that have on your family, on your wife and your children?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: I’m not sure that it had very much effect. I was fortunate when I compare myself with Henry Ford. Henry Ford was asked, “What effect did becoming a multi-millionaire have on your life?” He said, “Mrs. Ford stopped cooking for me.” My wife, although she complained a bit, didn’t stop cooking for me. You know, I don’t know my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren well enough to know what effect having me for a father or a grandfather or a great-grandfather has on their lives. I just don’t know. It’s hard for people to know other people, even for me to know my children. They are pretty good children, to the extent that I know them.</p> <p><strong>Why don’t you know them well enough?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, with my grandchildren, perhaps I haven’t had enough personal contact because they have been in distant places most of their lives. One of my grandsons, a pair of twin boys, the eldest children of my daughter and her husband, changed from being a graduate student in molecular biology to studying law. He has graduated and passed the bar examination and practices law. It is hard for me to understand why anyone would change from science to law, so there is something that I don’t understand, but it probably indicates a limited understanding on my part. He is a very smart fellow. His twin brother is a post-doctoral fellow in molecular biology now. They are both very smart.</p> <p><strong>Is there a particular talent that you don’t have that you always wanted, that you thought would have been helpful?</strong></p> <p>Linus Pauling: Well, I probably should just say no. There was a period of five years, or four and a half, during which I learned no additional mathematics. And when I got to Europe with my wife in 1926, I discovered many young theoretical physicists there who knew mathematics more thoroughly than I did. If, from the time when I was 17 years old to 21, I had been learning the sort of mathematics that I started again to learn in graduate school, I might well have been more adept at the mathematical side of science than I am. But, you know, I’m not really complaining. I’ve succeeded in handling some reasonably difficult mathematical problems.</p> <p><strong>You certainly have. It’s hard to imagine how you could have accomplished much more. Thank you for spending so much time with us.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>33 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69078947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-GettyImages-74402575_master.jpg" data-image-caption="1982: Linus Pauling, a chemist, biologist, and two-time winner of the Nobel Prize, at his home in Big Sur, California. Linus Pauling will be remembered as one of the twentieth century's premier chemists. Pauling has made a significant contribution to the scientific community with his research in inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, metallurgy, immunology, anesthesiology, psychology, radioactive decay, and nuclear warfare. (Joe McNally/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Linus Pauling Portraits" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-GettyImages-74402575_master-380x263.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/wp-GettyImages-74402575_master-760x525.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/watson-crick-dna-model.jpg" data-image-caption="James Watson and Francis Crick with their model of a DNA molecule in 1953, the year of their momentous discovery. (&copy; A. Barrington Brown, Gonville and Caius College)" data-image-copyright="watson-crick-dna-model" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/watson-crick-dna-model-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/watson-crick-dna-model-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.79736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus426" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426-380x303.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus426-760x606.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2816188870152" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Linus Pauling in the 1950s. (Courtesy of Niels Bohr Library, Uhlenbeck Collection)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus425" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425-296x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus425-593x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3013698630137" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling" data-image-copyright="Linus Pauling" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424-292x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus424-584x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2624584717608" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus423.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling in 1949, at the time of his first studies of sickle cell anemia. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus423" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus423-301x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus423-602x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5139442231076" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus422.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling in 1954 with model demonstrating molecular structure. A few days after this picture was taken, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus422" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus422-251x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus422-502x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.77763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling (second from right) with colleagues at California Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus363" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363-380x296.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus363-760x591.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69605263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus362.jpg" data-image-caption="1958: After a trip to Europe (including a visit to the USSR), the Paulings returned in the fall of 1957 to find a new challenge: a leading scientist was eagerly and publicly refuting Pauling’s anti-bomb claims. His name was Edward Teller. The Hungarian-born physicist, dubbed "The Father of the H-bomb" by the press, was a committed anti-Communist who was certain that ever-more-powerful weapons were the only thing forestalling a Soviet world takeover. He was determined to maintain the U.S. tactical advantage. Pauling admired Teller as a scientist, but detested his politics. In February 1958, on live television, they went to war. The venue was a one-hour debate in the studio of an educational station in San Francisco. The topic was the development of nuclear weapons. From the start, both men went on the offensive, with Pauling accusing Teller of making "many statements that are not true and many statements that are seriously misleading." Teller responded by highlighting the virtues of nuclear power and saying of fallout, "This alleged damage which the small radioactivity is causing -- supposedly cancer and leukemia -- has not been proved to the best of my knowledge by any decent and clear statistics. . . . It is even possible to my mind that there is no damage." They seesawed back and forth, Pauling raising specific criticisms, Teller countering with visions of a rosy, atom-powered future. Pauling seemed to grow increasingly shrill and humorless as the debate went on; Teller seemed by comparison relaxed and avuncular, turning Pauling’s questions and accusations aside with irrelevant comparisons or witticisms. When it was over, Pauling refused to debate him again, "because I consider his debating methods improper," Pauling said." data-image-copyright="pauling-linus362" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus362-380x265.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus362-760x529.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.80131578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling with co-worker at California Institute of Technology. (Courtesy of Oregon Historical Society)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus361" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361-380x305.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus361-760x609.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.91447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus359.jpg" data-image-caption="" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus359" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus359-380x347.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus359-760x695.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3286713286713" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus357.jpg" data-image-caption="" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus357" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus357-286x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus357-572x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5291750503018" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus356.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling with his infant son Peter in 1931. (By S.A. Goudsmit, Courtesy of AIP Niels Bohr Library)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus356" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus356-248x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus356-497x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4448669201521" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus-interview285.jpg" data-image-caption="Linus Pauling being interviewed by the Academy of Achievement at his home in Big Sur, California on November 11, 1990. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="pauling-linus-interview285" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus-interview285-263x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-Linus-interview285-526x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10.jpg" data-image-caption="Chemist and Nobel Prize-winner for the second time, Dr. Linus C. Pauling, with a model of a collagen on his desk. (Photo by Don Cravens/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Linus C. Pauling" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10-380x284.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Pauling-LInus-Getty-50677512_10-760x568.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2773109243697" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_.jpg" data-image-caption="1920s: The Pauling Family: Linus, Ava Helen, and Linus Jr. (Donald Jenkins)" data-image-copyright="1920s: The Pauling Family: Linus, Ava Helen, and Linus Jr. (Donald Jenkins)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_-297x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPG_-595x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2337662337662" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPF_.jpg" data-image-caption="1950s: Linus Pauling" data-image-copyright="1950s: Linus Pauling" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPF_-308x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBPF_-616x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4814814814815" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_.jpg" data-image-caption="1975: Linus Pauling receiving the National Medal of Science from President Ford. Pauling won the award "for the extraordinary scope and power of his imagination, which has led to basic contributions in such diverse fields as structural chemistry and the nature of chemical bonding, molecular biology, immunology, and the nature of genetic diseases."" data-image-copyright="mmbbnc_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_-256x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBNC_-513x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_.jpg" data-image-caption="1964: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling standing in front of their home." data-image-copyright="1964: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling standing in front of their home." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_-380x268.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMY_-760x535.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMP_.jpg" data-image-caption="1959: Albert Schweitzer and Linus Pauling on a beach in Lambarene, Republic of Gabon." data-image-copyright="mmbbmp_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMP_-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMP_-760x496.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.87631578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_.jpg" data-image-caption="1957: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling working on a petition against nuclear testing." data-image-copyright="mmbbml_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_-380x333.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBML_-760x666.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2687813021703" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_.jpg" data-image-caption="1954: Linus Pauling pointing to a molecular model. (Oregon State University Library. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)" data-image-copyright="mmbbmc_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_-299x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBMC_-599x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3669064748201" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLZ_.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 1954: Linus and Ava Helen Pauling dancing at the Nobel Banquet. (Oregon State University Library. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)" data-image-copyright="mmbblz_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLZ_-278x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLZ_-556x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69078947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLW_.jpg" data-image-caption="1947: Linus Pauling at the Silliman Lecture, Yale University, with Arthur Hill." data-image-copyright="1947: Linus Pauling at the Silliman Lecture, Yale University, with Arthur Hill." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLW_-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLW_-760x525.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLT_.jpg" data-image-caption="1947: Linus Pauling examining a crystal." data-image-copyright="1947: Linus Pauling examining a crystal." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLT_-380x268.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLT_-760x536.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.1801242236025" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLM_.jpg" data-image-caption="1930s: Linus Pauling holding a chemical model." data-image-copyright="1930s: Linus Pauling holding a chemical model." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLM_-322x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLM_-644x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2687813021703" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLL_.jpg" data-image-caption="1931: Pauling with his wife, Ava Helen, and their sons, Peter and Linus, Jr. (standing), in front of their home on Arden Road in Pasadena, California. (Oregon State University Library. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)" data-image-copyright="mmbbll_" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLL_-300x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MMBBLL_-599x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4048059149723" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922.jpg" data-image-caption="1922: Linus Pauling's graduation photo from Oregon State University." data-image-copyright="1922: Linus Pauling's graduation photo from Oregon State University." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922-271x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/LinusPaulingGraduation1922-541x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2459016393443" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_with_rope.jpg" data-image-caption="With Robert Corey's assistance, Pauling worked out a way that his alpha helixes could be wound, like a piece of yarn around a finger, into a sort of coiled coil that could, at long last, produce the missing reflection. He then took the idea a step or two further, imagining ways that coiled coils could snake around each other to form cables made from different numbers of strands. Natural keratin, the kind that gave Astbury-like patterns, could be twisted together from helical ropes. (Oregon State University Library. Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers)" data-image-copyright="linus_pauling_with_rope" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_with_rope-305x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_with_rope-610x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.88552631578947" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_family_1954.jpg" data-image-caption="1954: The Pauling children at a gathering in celebration of the 1954 Nobel Prizes, Stockholm, Sweden. Seated from left: Linus Pauling, Jr., Peter Pauling and Linda Pauling. Standing from left: An unidentified individual and Crellin Pauling." data-image-copyright="linus_pauling_family_1954" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_family_1954-380x337.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Linus_Pauling_family_1954-760x673.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5734989648033" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w.jpg" data-image-caption="1958: "Fallout and Disarmament," a televised debate between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller. Originally presented on KQED-TV, San Francisco. Reprinted in pamphlet form. San Francisco: Fearon Publishers, 1958, 13 pp." data-image-copyright="1958p2-1-cover-600w" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w-241x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1958p2.1-cover-600w-483x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3893967093236" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w.jpg" data-image-caption="1954: Peter, Crellin and Linus Pauling Jr. with their father at the Nobel ceremonies, Stockholm." data-image-copyright="1954i-57-900w" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w-274x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1954i.57-900w-547x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65657894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-Seaborg-Glenn-and-Linowitz-Sol-1.jpg" data-image-caption="" data-image-copyright="wp-seaborg-glenn-and-linowitz-sol" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-Seaborg-Glenn-and-Linowitz-Sol-1-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-Seaborg-Glenn-and-Linowitz-Sol-1-760x499.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on May 7, 2018</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration analytical curious help-mankind racism-discrimination " data-year-inducted="1989" data-achiever-name="Elion"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Gertrude B. 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Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/jennifer-a-doudna-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jennifer A. Doudna, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-s-fauci-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. 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Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20200917235429/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. 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