Birth of Linus Pauling

Linus Pauling was born on 28 February 1901 in Portland. An American chemist and activist, Pauling is one of the few people to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes: the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his work on the nature of the chemical bond, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing. He applied quantum mechanics to chemistry, explained the structure of proteins such as the alpha helix, and identified sickle cell anemia as a molecular disease. He lost the race to determine the structure of DNA to Watson and Crick. In later years he promoted high doses of vitamin C, a position not supported by evidence.

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