Linus Pauling: I put this slide in of hexamethylenetetramine to show tetrahedral character, the
tetrahedral character of atoms. The six carbon atoms are tetrahedrally bonded to the
neighbors and the four nitrogen atoms have bonds at three tetrahedron corners to the
carbon atoms. This is the first structure of an organic compound to have been determined
precisely, the bond lengths and bond angles. It was...done by Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson,
x-ray crystallographer with whom I began my graduate work in Pasadena in 1922, who
taught me the science of x-ray diffraction of, by crystals for the determination of
their structures as it was practiced then. It was a very powerful, valuable technique
this x-ray diffraction, and of course after awhile other organic compounds as well
as inorganic compounds began to be determined.
