- Born
- Died
- Birth nameLinus Carl Pauling
- Linus Pauling was born on February 28, 1901 in Portland, Oregon, USA. He was married to Ava Helen Miller. He died on August 19, 1994 in Big Sur, California, USA.
- SpouseAva Helen Miller(June 17, 1923 - December 7, 1981) (her death, 4 children)
- 1954 and 1962 Nobel laureate.
- In 1933 he became the youngest person ever to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
- Scientist, social activist, and biochemist, often called the outstanding chemist of the twentieth century.
- Pauling used the insights of quantum physics to theorize about a vibrating "resonance" within atoms which gives them the cohesiveness necessary for the molecular formations that bind all complex substances. This research allowed other scientists to unriddle the structure of DNA. For this work, he received the 1954 Nobel prize in chemistry.
- During the 1940s and 1950s, Pauling researched abnormal molecules and hereditary faults in body chemistry seeking the biochemical aspects of such disorders as schizophrenia and sickle-cell anemia.
- I like people. I like animals, too - whales and quail, dinosaurs and dodos. But I like human beings especially, and I am unhappy that the pool of human germ plasm, which determines the nature of the human race, is deteriorating. [From his 1959 paper on the effect of radioactive fallout on heredity]
- I recognize that many physicists are smarter than I am--most of them theoretical physicists. A lot of smart people have gone into theoretical physics, therefore the field is extremely competitive. I console myself with the thought that although they may be smarter and may be deeper thinkers than I am, I have broader interests than they have.
- If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.
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