Linus Pauling Day – February 28, 2025

History of Linus Pauling Day

Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon where his love for science began. As a child, he collected laboratory equipment and carried out several chemistry experiments at home. He spent all of his after-school hours working in his school’s chemistry lab.

In 1922, Pauling completed a degree in chemical engineering from Oregon State College. Soon after, he became a Teaching Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, which would become a home away from home. The institute would also be the birthplace of several scientific breakthroughs in the course of his career. In 1925, he earned a doctorate in physical chemistry and mathematical physics.

Research on molecular structures dominated much of his early years at the California Institute of Technology. He came up with ‘Pauling’s rules’ that enabled scientists to determine and accurately predict crystal structures.

By the mid-1930s, Pauling began to take a keen interest in biological molecules like protein. His studies uncovered the molecular causes for sickle-cell anemia, and a new class of disease – the molecular disease – was born. He also came up with the ‘alpha helix’ or the structure of proteins. Many consider him the father of molecular biology for these achievements and more. He wrote hundreds of papers and scientific articles that informed the course of chemistry during this time.

In 1954, Pauling received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The years that followed became a turning point for Pauling. He was deeply affected by the devastation caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Along with other scientists, he passionately advocated against nuclear arms in international politics. Pauling played a pivotal role in getting the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union to sign a nuclear test ban treaty on October 10, 1963. On the same day, the Nobel Committee announced that Pauling had won the Nobel Peace Prize.