REPORT ON LINUS CARL PAULING: Chemsitry Quiz , Rebellious and a peace Keeper

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REPORT ON LINUS CARL PAULING:

INTRODUCTION:

Linus Carl Pauling, revolutionized the study of chemistry, helped

found the field of molecular biology, and made important

advances in medical research. This man was a peace activist

whose advances changed the way we think and live.

BACKGROUND:

Linus Pauling was born on the 28th of February 1901 in Portland,

Oregon, to a self-taught druggist, Herman Henry William

Pauling, and Isabelle Pauling. At age 14, a visit with a friend who

owned a toy chemistry set started Pauling on his life's work.

Spellbound by the flames, smokes, odours, and by the sight of

mysterious changes in solutions and powders, Pauling ran home

and began assembling a rough laboratory in a corner of his

basement. Here he spent his teenage years seeking order and

relief in science.

By the time he graduated as a chemical engineer in 1922 he had

set his sights on answering one of the most important questions of

chemistry: how did atoms bond together to form molecules?

Pauling had started his structural studies by considering non-

living molecules, but during the 1930s he shifted his structural

studies to large biomolecules, especially proteins.

His

biomolecular research continued through World War II, during

which Pauling, an avid anti-Nazi also developed explosives and

rocket propellants. He patented an armor-piercing shell and

invented an oxygen metre for submarines. After the war, his

feelings towards weapons work changed when, spurred by the

pacifist activism of his wife, Ava Helen Pauling. Linus joined

other scientists in calling for civilian oversight and limitations on

nuclear testing. He met stiff opposition to his efforts in the

charged days of the budding Cold War.

CONTRIBUTION TO PEACE:

After winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, Pauling

focused his attention on peace work, organising scientists and

speaking out against nuclear testing and production, often to great

criticism and at great personal cost. His peace activism work was

recognized in the autumn of 1963 with the Nobel Peace Prize for

1962. The award was greeted with widespread criticism in the

press.

Pauling spent the next decade as an academic nomad, working at

different think tanks and universities. For over twenty years,

between 1973 and 1994, Pauling's research focused on a field he

termed the concept that optimal health could result from ensuring

that the right molecules were present in the right amount in the

body.

CONCLUSION:

Pauling's long career path led from chemistry to biology to

medicine to peace activision. At every turn he was eager to jump

disciplinary fences and explore new territory at the borders. He

was attacked for his political beliefs and he always stood for true

justice in all that he said and he was also known to go outside of

accepted channels in making his results widely spread.

Nevertheless, in the course of his long career he wrote more than

five hundred papers and eleven books and won every important

prize awarded in his field. Because of his dynamic personality

and his many accomplishments in widely diverse fields, it is hard

to define Linus Pauling adequately. A remarkable man who

insistently addressed certain crucial human problems while

pursuing an amazing array of scientific interests. He is considered

the most significant and most unique man of his generation.