Oregon State University will observe the Linus Pauling Centenary the 100th anniversary of the birth of renowned scientist and humanitarian Linus Pauling with a year of activities that celebrate the life and accomplishments of the greatest scholar ever to emerge from its halls.
The two-time Nobel laureate was born on Feb. 28, 1901, and later graduated in chemical engineering, class of 1923, from OSU (then called Oregon Agricultural College). Pauling died in 1994 at the age of 93, and OSU today is the repository of his papers. The Pauling Collection, which includes more nearly a half million items, is one of the most complete collections in the world capturing the career of a single scientist. It includes all of his papers, research notebooks, medals, awards and correspondence.
"Many scholars believe Linus Pauling and Albert Einstein were the two greatest scientists of the 20th century," said Stephen Lawson of OSUs Linus Pauling Institute. "Pauling had an encyclopedic knowledge of chemistry and physics, and his pioneering studies of the chemical bond led to his Nobel Prize in chemistry.
"But this incredible range of knowledge is also why he was among the first in the world to understand the health dangers of atmospheric nuclear testing, which eventually led to his Nobel Peace Prize."
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has proclaimed February 2001 as Linus Pauling Month in Oregon. A website with information on centenary events, a Pauling chronology, multimedia presentations of biographical and scientific events in Paulings life, and links to the catalogue of the Pauling papers can be found at http://pauling.library.orst.edu.
After earning his doctorate in chemistry and mathematical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1925, Pauling quickly became one of the foremost chemists in the world and did pioneering studies on the nature of the chemical bond that holds molecules together work that woul
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Contact: Stephen Lawson
stephen.lawson@orst.edu
541-737-5080
Oregon State University
7-Feb-2001