Linus Pauling
Overview
Linus Carl Pauling was an American chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

, biochemist
Biochemist
Biochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. The prefix of "bio" in "biochemist" can be understood as a fusion of "biological chemist."-Role:...

, peace activist
Peace activist
This list of peace activists includes people who proactively advocate diplomatic, non-military resolution of political disputes, usually through nonviolent means.A peace activist is an activist of the peace movement.*Jane Addams*Martti Ahtisaari...

, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, and educator. He was one of the most influential chemists in history and ranks among the most important scientists of the 20th century. Pauling was among the first scientists to work in the fields of quantum chemistry
Quantum chemistry
Quantum chemistry is a branch of chemistry whose primary focus is the application of quantum mechanics in physical models and experiments of chemical systems...

 and molecular biology
Molecular biology
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

.

Pauling is one of only four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

. He is one of only two people awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields (the chemistry and peace prizes), the other being Marie Curie
Marie Curie
Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...

 (the Chemistry and Physics prizes), and the only person awarded two unshared prizes.
Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

, as the first-born child of Herman Henry William Pauling (1876-1910) and Lucy Isabelle "Belle" Darling (1881-1926).
Unanswered Questions
Quotations

The only sane policy for the world is that of abolishing war.

Nobel Lecture for The Nobel Peace Prize 1962 (11 December 1963)

I have always wanted to know as much as possible about the world.

Linus Pauling In His Own Words (1995) by Barbara Marinacci ISBN 0684813874

Only when I began studying chemical engineering at Oregon Agricultural College did I realize that I myself might discover something new about the nature of the world.

Linus Pauling In His Own Words (1995) by Barbara Marinacci

What astonished me was the very low toxicity of a substance that has such very great physiological power. A little pinch, 5 mg, every day, is enough to keep a person from dying of pellagra, but it is so lacking in toxicity that ten thousand times as much can [sometimes] be taken without harm. (word in brackets added)

About vitamin B3, (either niacin or niacinamide), in How to Live Longer and Feel Better,, 1986, Avon Books, ISBN 0-380-70289-4 , page 24.

"I have something that I call my Golden Rule. It goes something like this: 'Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you.' [Pause.] The twenty-five percent is for error."

Pauling's reply to an audience question about his ethical system, following his lecture circa 1961 at Monterey Peninsula College, in Monterey, California.

 
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