NOBEL THOUGHTS: Linus Pauling
Profound Insights of the Laureates
Linus Pauling is widely regarded as one of the giants in the history of
science. He has been called the father of modern chemistry, and his pioneering
inquiries have ranged wide and far in the disciplines of biology, physics
and medicine. Pauling is the only person who has received two undivided
Nobel Prizes. In 1954 he received the Nobel prize for chemistry for his
work on the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the structure
of complex substances. In 1962 he received the Nobel peace prize for
his efforts to bring about the treaty banning tests of atomic explosives
in the atmosphere. This interview was conducted in 1992. Dr. Pauling
died in 1994.
To what extent did your schooling interfere with your education?
A. I don't think it interfered at all. I think I was fortunate going to public schools in eastern Oregon and then in Portland. They were excellent schools, grammar school and high school.
To what extent did you interfere with your education?
A. Very little. Only one episode that I remember. After I'd been in high school for three years and a half, having started in February — mid-year, you see — I realized that I could go on to Oregon Agricultural College if I graduated at the end of the term. There was a requirement that to graduate high school the student needed to have two terms of American history. I was always interested in history, so I signed up for American History A and American History B. The teacher who was registering said I had to get the permission of the principal. I went to the principal, and he said, "No," so I turned around and went out and changed the two terms of American history to seventh semester mathematics and eighth semester mathematics - trigonometry was one of them, and advanced algebra - changed my schedule and didn't get a high school diploma. So I interfered with the system to that extent. Then twenty-five years later, perhaps, I was given an honorary high school diploma by petition of the high school students.
What is the most intriguing experiment someone might do regarding human nature?
A. I don't think I could answer such a question without thinking awhile. I have tried to.
Do you have any advice for young people who are entering the field?
A. Well, I have advice for young people in general. That's a guestion I get asked reasonably often. I say you should look around carefully at the members of the opposite sex, and pick one out that you'd like to be with all your life. Get married young, and stay married. Then second, I say try to decide what you like to do best - what you enjoy doing - and then check up and see if it's possible for you to earn a living doing it.
Is there a third point?
A. No.
Each year we present Ig Nobel prizes to people whose achievements cannot or should not be reproduced. Who would you nominate to win an Ig Nobel prize?
A. Well of course I'd be pleased to have [Edward] Teller get a second Ig Nobel prize so he could become listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the person who's achieved the most Ig Nobel prizes. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb and the foremost proponent of the "star wars" missile defense system, was awarded the 1991 Ig Nobel peace prize. The citation said that Teller had "changed the meaning of peace as we know it."]
Anyone else come to mind?
A. Well, let me see. In personal science, Dr. Victor Herbert I think deserves such a prize. He was at Hahnemann [Hospital] and got fired because he got in a fistfight with the dean. He - Victor Herbert - is considered to be a great authority on vitamins, always testifying on vitamin cases, and he was on the food and drug board that National Academy president Frank Press fired when they brought in their report that the RDA's [Recommended Daily Amounts] be decreased. Then when the National Academy of Sciences had a new committee and got out a new report, he sued them for using some material that he had written — for plagiarism.
I think that case has been thrown out of court.
A. And he in a sense is responsible for my having spent more than 20 years in this vitamin field. He irritated me so much about 1969 that I sat down and wrote my book "Vitamin C and the Common Cold." Well, Victor Herbert is famous among orthomolecular nutritionists and physicians. You expect the Food and Drug Administration to be quoting him by just reading the reports, so they quote him as authority for statements that I think are just not true. Mr. Herbert seems to me to be a really good candidate.
Anybody else?
A. Well, there's an anonymous referee for Physical Review Letters who said that a paper that I wrote should be turned down, a paper in which I talked about the cluster of nucleons revolving about a central sphere. He said a structure of that sort is impossible because quantum mechanics requires that the normal state (or any other state) be either symmetric or antisymmetric. So I wrote to the editor and said: "Here, this fellow doesn't understand quantum mechanics, and you're using him as a referee! He would say that a molecule of hydrogen chloride, for example, couldn't exist." I didn't get any reply to that from the editor.
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