Re: CCL:Linus Pauling

["Peter Shenkin" <shenkin.,at,.still3.chem.columbia.edu>]

 On Aug 21, 10:24am, Pieter Stouten wrote:
 > Subject: CCL:Linus Pauling
 > At the age of 93, Linus Pauling, a brilliant chemist and the only man to
 > win two Nobel prizes in different categories, passed away on his estate
 > in California.....
 It's difficult to overestimate Pauling's contributions to the ways we
 think of things chemical.  Perhaps some others would like to add to
 or elaborate on (or to correct, if appropriate) the following few
 examples:
 	Pauling was one of the first chemists to understand the
 	implications of quantum theory for chemistry.  Probably
 	his major contribution was rationalizing, in terms of the
 	new physics, the traditional language that chemists had
 	already been using to describe molecular structure, and
 	thereby showing how important it was for chemists to
 	understand these new ideas.  Recall that prior to Schroedinger,
 	nobody had the slightest idea why a covalent bond should form.
 	Pauling also had an important role in taking these fundamental
 	physical laws and reducing them to qualitative rules that could
 	explain a whole lot of chemistry;  an example is the concept
 	of electronegativity.  Also, resonance, though in use as
 	a chemical concept before quantum mechanics, was shown by
 	Pauling to be consistent with quantum mechanics.
 	Pauling predicted that because of resonance, the peptide bond
 	should be rigid and planar.  This simplified efforts to
 	understand protein structure.  Pauling predicted the existence
 	of the alpha helix in globular proteins long before X-ray
 	structures demonstrated that they occurred.
 He had a few dead ends, too.  For example, his theory of the immune
 system (that antibodies were "plastic", and could conform to an
 antigen
 and keep that conformation, thus keeping a history of past exposure)
 turned out to be completely wrong.  And the jury is still out on the
 question whether taking massive doses of vitamin C does anybody any good.
 But most would agree that Pauling was the greatest chemist of the
 20th century -- at least so far.  (We still have 6 years, after all.... :-) )
 	-P.
 --
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