Biography:

• Born in Portland, Oregon on 28/2/1901
• His father died when he was only 9 years of age.
• After having started collecting insects, rocks and minerals he became interested in Chemistry at the age of 13.
• He attended Washington High School
• Although he was an excellent student he dropped out of high school at the age of 16.
• He then started work as an apprentice machinist but dreamed of going to college and become a chemical engineer.
• He applied and was accepted by Oregon Agricultural College.
• At college he insured he had enough academic challenges by attending the most difficult classes.
• He had to work in order to keep attending and so he taught chemistry.
• Thanks to this job he got to know his future wife, Ava Helen.
• After graduating he went to the California Institute of Technology where he had received a teaching fellowship and where the head of department's, Professor Arthur Noyes', main research interest was " the nature of the chemical bond".
• At Cal Tech he became an expert in x-ray diffraction.
• After receiving his PhD he then went on to work on several publications regarding the nature of the chemical bond which linked chemistry to quantum mechanics.
• In 1931 he became professor at Cal Tech
• As a result of the second world war Pauling shifted his studies to chemical biology.
• He then went on to study hemoglobin.
• The broadness of his different fields of study make him very unusual for a scientist of his magnitude, not having focused on a specialty topic.
• When the USA joined the war Pauling started research for the U.S. military in developing missiles, explosives and propellants.
• He also became politically more interested.
• Research into sickle cell anemia linking it to a genetic defect in the protein hemoglobin
• He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work done on the Chemical Bond
•  In 1958 Pauling wrote No More War! which discussed the threat of nuclear war and testing. He and Ava Helen, with the support of students, circulated then submitted an anti-nuclear petition to the United Nations, which included the signatures of over 11,000 scientists from 49 countries.
• After Great Britain and the Soviet Union signed the partial nuclear test ban treaty Pauling was announced Noble Prize Winner for Peace
• Pauling takes big interest in the effects of Vitamin C food supplements in particular as a cure for the common cold
• In 1973 Linus Pauling founded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine (LPI)
• Though he spent most of his final years in nutritional research, his curiosity kept him involved in other areas.
• In 1992, at age 91, he received a patent for a new technique of fabricating superconductive materials.
• He also spoke out on the Persian Gulf war. He was truly a renaissance man, investigating all major areas of science and world peace.
• Dies at his coastal ranch in California in 1994