Author Description

This book catalogs the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers at Oregon State University. In addition to cataloging the collection, it gives a chronological biography. 18 pages of illustrations. The papers of Linus Pauling, internationally acclaimed scientist, and the only person to have won two unshared Nobel prizes, and those of his wife, Ava Helen Pauling, were acquired by Oregon State University in December 1986. The collection includes all of Pauling's personal and scientific papers, notebooks and correspondence from 1916 to the mid-1960s. There are over 125,000 items comprising some 130 cubic feet. In addition, Dr. Pauling has donated his books, medals, research models, and memorabilia. Among the most prominent items in the collection, in addition to Dr. Pauling's Nobel medals, are: the original petition for nuclear disarmament presented to the United Nations, which contains more than 11,000 signatures of prominent scientists and Nobel laureates from around the world; the original manuscripts of General Chemistry and The Architecture of Molecules; the original research notebooks used to record his scientific theories; the research books and notebooks from his work on The Nature of the Chemical Bond, one of the most influential scientific books of the twentieth-century; a series of papers on valence bond theory which laid the foundation for the modern interpretation of the chemical bond; letters from major twentieth-century scientists; over 40 hours of film on Pauling's life and work. This publication was made possible by a grant from the Oregon State University Friends of the Library.