Linus Pauling and The Nature of the Chemical Bond: A Documentary History All Documents and Media  
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Sir William Lawrence Bragg
James Bryant Conant
Roscoe Dickinson
Samuel Goudsmit
Roger Hayward
Werner Heisenberg
Walter Heitler
Arthur Lamb
Irving Langmuir
G. N. Lewis
Fritz London
Robert Millikan
Robert Mulliken
A. A. Noyes
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Wolfgang Pauli
Linus Pauling
Erwin Schrödinger
John Slater
Arnold Sommerfeld
J. Holmes Sturdivant
Richard Tolman
Max Theodore Felix von Laue
Don Yost

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Portrait of Arthur Amos Noyes.
Portrait of Arthur Amos Noyes. 1920s.
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A. A. Noyes

1866-1936

Papers of Arthur A. Noyes, 1883-1936
Location: Caltech Institute Archives
Address: Mail Code 015A-74, Pasadena, CA 91125
Size: 1 linear foot
Phone: 626-395-2704  Fax: 626-793-8756
Email: archives@caltech.edu  Web: http://archives.caltech.edu

 

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"I think that it is very interesting that one can see the [psi] functions of Schrödinger’s wave mechanics by means of the X-ray study of crystals. This work should be continued experimentally. I believe that much information regarding the nature of the chemical bond will result from it."

Linus Pauling. Letter to A. A. Noyes. 1926.

"...[T]o awaken an interest in chemistry in students we mustn’t make the courses consist entirely of explanations, forgetting to mention what there is to be explained."

Linus Pauling. Letter to A. A. Noyes. November 18, 1930.

"I consider that the field of work in which Dr. Pauling is engaged, namely the study of the chemical bond and of valence from the standpoint of modern physics, is the most important line of research in theoretical chemistry today; and I venture to believe that there is no one in the world who in the same degree has chemical background and at the same time has the physical knowledge, mathematical power, and originality required for the handling of this problem."

A. A. Noyes. Letter to William Foster. October 15, 1931.

"When I was in Europe...I received a letter from A. A. Noyes saying that he was writing to offer me an appointment as 'Assistant Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Mathematical Physics,' and I accepted it, but by the time that I got here it had been changed to 'Assistant Professor of Theoretical Chemistry' . . . I don't know what happened with the physics, whether Millikan objected to my having a joint appointment or whether Noyes decided . . . [Noyes] was preventing me from going to Berkeley, and he may have decided that he didn't want me associated with the physics department in this way, that perhaps I would shift."

Linus Pauling. AHQP (Archive for the History of Quantum Physics), interview transcript part 2. Interview by John Heilbron. March 27, 1964.

"In 1931 when my papers on the nature of the chemical bond appeared, Professor Noyes, who was chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, said that I probably would get the Nobel Prize someday. Well, I thought, that's nice of the old guy to say that, but I'm a little skeptical myself. And as the years went by, I thought, I don't do the sort of work for which Nobel Prizes are given."

Linus Pauling. NOVA Interview. 1977.

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