In the fall of 1927, a newly hired professor — tall and energetic, with a beautiful young wife and an abundance of self confidence — arrived at the California Institute of Technology near Los Angeles. His name was Linus Pauling.

He came fresh from Europe, where he had spent more than a year on a Guggenheim Fellowship participating in a scientific revolution.

He did not know it, but he was about to start another at Caltech. During the next twelve years he would reshape the study of chemistry, lay the groundwork for molecular biology, write one of the most important books in scientific history and define the nature of the chemical bond. In 1954 he would win a Nobel Prize for his work.

But first he had a class to teach.