X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Linus Pauling


Cooperative binding

Linus Pauling reinterpreted the equation provided by Adair, assuming that his constants were the combination of the binding constant for the ligand (K in the equation below) and energy coming from the interaction between subunits of the cooperative protein (\alpha below).

Ewan Cameron

Ewan Cameron (31 July 1922, Dumbarton – 21 March 1991) was a Scottish physician who worked with Linus Pauling on Vitamin C research.

Residual entropy

One of the first examples of residual entropy was pointed out by Pauling to describe water ice.


Alfred Mirsky

During a sabbatical year at the California Institute of Technology, Mirsky published a paper with Linus Pauling on the general theory of protein structure, suggesting that the structure of proteins are coiled in a specific configuration that accounts for the function in the body, and that the protein is denatured when that configuration is lost by breaking the hydrogen bonds that stabilize the structure.

Findlay E. Russell

Other associates included George Wells Beadle, Arie Jan Haagen-Smit and Nobelists William Shockley and Linus Pauling (he treated Pauling's dog with vitamin C injections).

Hsien Wu

This crucial idea was popularized later by Linus Pauling and Alfred Mirsky.

Lørdagsredaksjonen

Many celebrities were invited to the programme, among them actress Britt Langlie and the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Linus Pauling.

Molecular clock

The notion of the existence of a so-called "molecular clock" was first attributed to Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling who, in 1962, noticed that the number of amino acid differences in hemoglobin between different lineages changes roughly linearly with time, as estimated from fossil evidence.

Molecular model

Models encompass a wide range of degrees of precision and engineering: some models such as J.D. Bernal's water are conceptual, while the macromodels of Pauling and Crick and Watson were created with much greater precision.

Pocono Conference

New participants were Niels Bohr, Aage Bohr, Paul Dirac, Walter Heitler, Eugene Wigner and Gregor Wentzel; while Kramers, MacInnes, Nordsieck, Pauling and Van Vleck who were at the Shelter Island Conference were absent.

Shan Serafin

He directed and co-wrote the stage play Essential Bond about two-time Nobel Prize recipient Linus Pauling, which starred Matthew Ashford and John Astin.

Soka University of America

The new campus's principle academic buildings were named after the founder and Sōka Gakkai's third president Daisaku Ikeda and twentieth century peace activists Mahatma Gandhi and Linus Pauling.

The Double Helix

Also included are retrospectives from a 1974 edition of Nature written by Francis Crick and Linus Pauling, and an analysis of Franklin's work by her student Aaron Klug.

Triple-stranded DNA

Watson and Crick (who later won the Nobel Prize for their double-helix model) originally considered a triple-helix model, as did Pauling and Corey, who published a proposal for their triple-helix model in the 1953 scientific journal Nature, as well as fellow scientist Fraser.

Vitamin C megadosage

The use of vitamin C in high doses as a treatment for cancer was promoted by Linus Pauling, based on a 1976 study published with Ewan Cameron which reported intravenous vitamin C significantly increased lifespans of patients with advanced cancer.


see also

Keith Usherwood Ingold

He was awarded the 1968 Petroleum Chemistry Award, the 1988 Linus Pauling Award and has been awarded both the Davy Medal and Royal Medal of the Royal Society, the latter for "elucidating the mechanism of reactions involving free radicals".