Linus Carl Pauling - Part VI

June 14, 2010

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Dr. Linus Pauling often urged other scientists to get involved in politics and society, he said: "It is sometimes said that science has nothing to do with morality. This is wrong. Science is the search for truth, the effort to understand the world; it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality... One way in which scientists work is by observing the world, making note of phenomena, and analyzing them."

I strongly believe that what we can learn from Pauling's biography, as in many other great personalities, is a wonderful lesson.

He was one of those great people that had to struggle in his early years even for their bare survival and he overcame it with generosity and high values.

He had to use the whole of his will power, strength, and determination to continue studying, after finishing his &#&high-school&#&, to enter current Oregon &#&State University&#& in Corvallis, which he almost had to leave because of his and his family's economical problems.

He didn't surrender and although it was not at all easy, he graduated from current Oregon &#&State University&#& with a degree in chemical engineering with a grade average of 94,29 for his four years of college, and then, overcoming new difficulties, he went on to &#&graduate school&#& at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, where he obtained proper training, working with some of the best minds of his time.

He was a vivid model demonstrating that where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great.

As the remarkable man he was at the same time he pursued an amazing array of scientific interests he never neglected his high values which obliged him to insistently address certain crucial human problems with passion and firm dedication.

Dr. Linus Pauling was awarded many prizes, recognitions and honors over the seven decades of his scientific and humanitarian career. He was a man with a strong, powerful and dynamic personality, and he performed a great deal of accomplishments in widely diverse fields.

For sure it is very difficult to define such a man adequately but the truth is that when Dr. Linus Pauling died on August 19, 1994, the world lost one of its greatest scientists and humanitarians and a much respected and beloved defender of civil liberties and health issues.