2007-9-19

I've devoted my entire life to an eternally good world,starting my exploration from physics and chemistry,to more complicated subjects including biology, medicine and anthrop sociologic development,and even to more advanced fields.

----Pauling

Four people have wined the Nobel Prize twice in the 100-year history of the Prize,and Pauling is one of them, and also the only one that won the Prize alone. He was given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1954 for his research into the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances, and also the Nobel Prize in Peace 1962 for his devotion to international control over nuclear weapons and movements against nuclear tests. He is not only a great scientist,but also a great peaceful soldier.

Pauling was born in Portland,Oregon, on 28th February,1901,the son of a druggist, Herman Pauling. He would never forget one thing happened when he was 12 years old in senior high school. At that time, scientific knowledge began to be taught at school,but there was no course of chemistry. Pauling got to know the course from his friend Jeffrays who was as keen as him on science. One day after school, Jefferays invited Pauling to his home to visit some simple chemical containers made by himself and collected chemical products. He mixed powders with different colors together into solution which produced beautiful pops. He also showed an amazing thing. Sugar and potassium chloride were stirred together with sulfate added into it later, and then flames suddenly leaped up into the air. Little Pauling was completely attracted by all of these.

Since then,he got obsessed with chemistry,determined to become a chemist. Later he wrote in his memoirist,"looking back to the past,what moved me most was that I realized that material is eternal^....in chemistry,things can be changed,amazing changes." Pauling always considered that afternoon as the start of his career in chemistry, and he kept such liking and obsession in his entire life

16-year old Pauling entered the Oregon State College in the autumn of 1917,a further step to his dream of being a chemist. Just finishing the second year of the college,he served as a full-time teacher of quantitative analysis in the State College with a monthly salary of 100 USD.

It sounds like a legend today to hire a student who just finished his second year in college to teach sophomores,but it was true. Even Pauling himself did not believe it. He would have been given the chance if he was not excellent in his study, even in the lack of teachers at war time.

His scores were undoubtedly the best in his class. He could pass many courses like engineering,chemistry and math in the first and second years which were considered quite complicated by most students. The whole class and professors were all surprised about his scores and intelligence.

Pauling focused on teaching then, trying to catch attention of the students. His chemical knowledge was as much as that of professors. Students were so satisfied with his course that at the end of the first semester, they jointly proposed that Pauling continue to give the quantitative chemical course to the department. And leaders were also happy about that. His schoolmate recalled that,"at that time,students always commented that he was so excellent,knowing as much as professors but teaching much better than them." He was considered as an outstanding talent then.

Pauling was a mater in structural chemistry. New terminologies,concepts and rules put forward by him made structural chemistry standardized with uniform research standards and methods, leading to smooth development of the research of this field. In 1954, he was given the Noble Prize in Chemistry thanks to his extraordinary contributions to the nature of the chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances. The most influential ones are the Theory of Hybrid Atomic Orbital and Resonance Theory. He is also the first person who put forward the helical structure of protein molecules.

Apart from an outstanding scientist,he was also active in social movements concerning international politics. He supported positive power, maintained world peace,and opposed to non-justice wars.

On July 26,1945,the first nuclear bomb was exploded in New Mexico State,the US. Later on August 6th and 9th in the same year, another two were exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,Japan,whose disastrous situation enabled people to realized endless harm of nuclear bombs. And scientists also became aware that science was not only the source of human progress but also a killer creating nightmares for the world. Therefore, many scientists began to call for peace and oppose to nuclear weapons. In the movement against nuclear weapons,Pauling,in a image of fighter,stood at the front of the anti-nuclear tide.

"Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists",sponsored by Einstein, was formed by Pauling and several other scientists in 1946. Since then, he began to deliver speeches everywhere,received interviews, and submitted proposals to the political community as to spread the enormous disasters caused by nuclear weapons to human race. In 1952,he pointed out in a speech in New York City:it is not necessary for the Soviet Union to have the same social and economic systems to peacefully coexist. What is needed is just mutual respect,joint efforts for social progress. Both should realize that it has lost its role as the sole judge for the destiny of human beings due to war."

The first hydrogen bomb exploded in November 1952 in the US. In the next year,the Soviet Union also succeeded in the hydrogen bomb test. In June 1955,Pauling and another 51 Nobel Prize winners made a declaration against the development of hydrogen bombs by the US and the Soviet Union.

In January 1958,he proposed in his appeal submitted to the Secretary General that an international agreement should be made to prevent the test of nuclear weapons. It said that every atomic bomb test would dramatically increase radioactive elements worldwide which would severely cause damage to the health of human beings. 2000 American scientists and 8000 from another 49 countries seriously signed their names in his appeal. Because of this,he was summoned for trial by the Senate. Some MPs even threatened him by prosecuting him for disrespecting the Congress, but he didn't give up and still continued with his peaceful cause. In 1959,Pauling,as an American representative,attended the Fifth World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Tokyo. In 1952, he wrote letters to the Soviet Union leader Khrushchev and the US President Kennedy respectively to once again urge them to stop nuclear tests.

Thanks to the efforts of Pauling and other scientists,people got to know some facts about nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear tides worldwide appeared and demonstrations against nuclear weapon tests continuously carried out.

The efforts of Pauling, other scientists and their supporters were not in vain. In August 1963, the US,the Soviet Union and the UK eventually signed Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in Moscow.

Pauling was given the Nobel Prize in Peace 1962 for he drew attention from the public to the danger of radioactive materials from nuclear tests.