Linus Carl Pauling - Part IV

June 14, 2010

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Linus Pauling decided to go to &#&graduate school&#& to get a doctorate in chemistry. He applied for fellowships in different universities, and he also applied for a Rhodes &#&Scholarship&#& to Oxford University, but he didn't receive it. He received different offers and he decided to apply to California Institute of Technology.

In the fall of 1922 Linus Pauling went on to &#&graduate school&#& at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California. He began research in X-ray crystallography under the direction of Roscoe G. Dickinson.

He published several papers on the crystal structure of minerals while he was at Caltech.

On June 12, 1925 Pauling received his Ph.D. degree summa cum laude in chemistry, with minors in physics and mathematics. His dissertation was entitled "The Determination with X-rays of the Structure of Crystals. He remained at Caltech for the next 38 years.

He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1926-27. He went to study to Europe with physicists who were exploring the implications of quantum mechanics for atomic structure.

To satisfy his voracious mind Linus Pauling found a physical and mathematical framework, in this revolutionary new field, for his own future theories regarding molecular structure and its correlation with chemical properties and function.

In 1931 Linus Pauling's paper on "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. This was the first of what would become a very important and influential series of papers on the nature of the chemical bond.

Pauling himself called this paper "very important-the best work I've ever done." When World War II began, Dr. Linus Pauling, who was seriously worried, fearing for his country, for the loss of democracy and for Hitler's autocracy and danger, offered the U.S. government the use of his laboratory and of his services as a research consultant

In 1946, at the invitation of Albert Einstein Linus became a member of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists. This Committee's mission was to warn the public of the dangers associated with the development of nuclear weapons. Influenced by the things that happened post World War II and by his wife's pacifism Linus Pauling changed his life profoundly becoming passionate activist in the peace cause.

Acknowledging Pauling's patriotic wartime activities, in 1948 President Harry Truman presented the Presidential Medal for Merit to him "for outstanding services to the United States from October 1940 to June 1946."