Letter from Linus Pauling to Lindsay Helmholz. May 31, 1957. Page 1  Larger Images / More Information. 1 p.  View Transcript

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Activity Listings

• Check from AHP to Hastings Liquor Store for $23.64. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Bank Statements and Canceled Checks, February 1956-December 1957), Box #4.204, Folder #24.2]
• Check from AHP to Kloke's for $10.20. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Bank Statements and Canceled Checks, February 1956-December 1957), Box #4.024, Folder #24.2]
• Letter from Beatrice Wulf to Leo H. Criep, MD, RE: Notifies him that LP does not need to see a copy of the transcript before it goes to the Journal. [Letter from Dr. Criep to LP May 14, 1957] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (C: Correspondence, 1957), #74.25]
• Letter from Edward Ramberg to LP, RE: Apologizes for the poor return in signatures and explains that he probably would have gotten more if he'd had more time. Handwritten note labels it number 44 and indicates that it was answered 21 July. [Filed under LP Safe Contents, Drawer 3 Folder 3.004]
• Letter from Forrest L. Carter to LP RE: Informs him that the workbooks that were promised have not arrived yet and are greatly needed. Settles a debt with LP by sending him $187.41 and thanks him for his kindness. [Letter from Dr. Carter to LP March 24, 1957, Letter from LP to Dr. Carter April 17, 1957, Letter from LP to Dr. Carter June 11, 1957] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (C: Correspondence, 1957), #74.25]
• Letter from John H Thomas to LP, RE: Tells LP that he would like to add his support to LP's efforts to get nuclear tests banned. Explains that he has been trying to point out the dangers of testing to his classes all year and has received some discouraging results, but he continues to try. [Filed under LP Personal Safe, Drawer 2 Folder 2.030]
• Letter from LP to Dr. Bettye M. Caldwell, Director, Child Evaluation Clinic, Washington University RE: Thanks her for her interest in his lecture and in helping to stop atomic tests and tells her about the statement he has being signed by members of the scientific community. Encourages her as an individual citizen to send letters to her congressmen, senators, the president, and the newspapers. [Letter from Dr. Caldwell to LP May 14, 1957] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (C: Correspondence, 1957), #74.25]
• Letter from LP to Dr. Otto Bastiansen, Institutt for Teoretisk Kjemi, RE: Reports that the British had already begun their testing and gives some of his figures on the consequences on atomic testing: a single superbomb leads to 1,000 deaths by leukemia. States that the information on bone cancer that Dr. Bastiansen asked about was an estimate from British scientists. [Letter from Dr. Bastiansen to LP May 15, 1957, Letter from Dr. Bastiansen to LP June 15, 1957] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Bastiansen, Otto, 1951-1958, 1960-1967, 1970-1971, 1980-1982, 1986), #24.3]
• Letter from LP to Mr. W. H. Freeman, RE: Replies that he does not know anything about Scott Searles and has no idea if he would write a good organic chemistry book. Says that it may be worth while to see some of his manuscript. Says that he will be back from Europe August 28th and that if Freeman needs to get in touch with him, he send the letter to Mrs. Wulf and she can send it to LP. [Letter from Freeman to LP, May 17, 1957] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (W. H. Freeman and Company, 1941-1959.), Box #439, Folder #439.15]
• Letter from LP to Peter Pauling. [Filed under LP Biographical: Box #5.043, Folder #43.1]

  1 June 1957

  Dear Peter:

  We are looking forward to seeing you and Julia and Thomas in a few weeks.

  Yesterday we celebrated Linda's birthday. Barclay was present, of course, and also Priscilla Beatty and her mother, as guests. We had the standard birthday cake, and drank a toast to Linda in champagne. I suppose you knew that Linda and Barclay are going to he married - 8 September, I think.

  Mamma and I are very busy now, because we leave a week from today, and have many things to do. Tomorrow I have a television performance, on ABC, the show Medical Horizons. It is a half-hour show, on a national hookup. Don Goddard will ask me some questions about biological effects of radiation, and so on.

  Also, a couple of weeks ago I prepared a statement, an appeal by American scientists, and sent it out about a week ago for signatures. The signatures have been coming in at the rate of 1000 per day, and I am on the job preparing a news release for tomorrow night, to appear in the Monday papers.

  I think that I shall tell you an idea that I have had about the cubic crystals K₂Ni₂(SO₄)². Probably the space group is T₄. If I remember correctly (I don't have the tables here) there are few equivalent positions with one parameter, xxx, etc. and twelve equivalent positions with three parameters, and accordingly one parameter for every four atoms in the unit cube. Since there are four stoichiometrically molecules in the cube, there must be then nineteen parameters to determine the structure. This is, of course, the reason that I stopped in 1922; a structure such as this was hopeless in those days.

  There is little doubt that each nickel atom is surrounded by octahedron of six oxygen atoms, each oxygen then common to a sulfate tetrahedron and nickel octahedron. The problem is then one of linking tetrahedra and octahedra. One way to attack it is to think of a structure with eight atoms of one kind and twelve atoms of another in a unit cube. The only structure that occurs to me is the (beta)-manganese structure, in which there are eight manganese atoms of one sort, arranged roughly in pairs along non-intersecting three-fold torial plane between the stems of each pair. Perhaps the pairs of atoms could be represented by pairs of NiO₈ octahedra, and the groups of three by SiO₄ tetrahedra which share two oxygens with the octahedra, spanning the gap between them. This probably would cut the symmetry down from O₆ (or O₇) to T₄. The way to attack the problem would be, I think, to make a model in which stiff paper octahedra and tetrahedra are arranged in this way on four non-intersecting three-fold axes, and then to rotate the octahedra and slip them along the axes until the outer oxygens of the tetrahedra connect up with the outer oxygens of the octahedra on the surrounding three-fold axes. It might well be possible to measure the model and to obtain a set of nineteen parameters that would then permit a refinement to be made from the intensities, probably by least squares, since it would be hard to get good Fourier projections.

  I can't remember why I never tried to photograph the reported tetrahedral crystals with composition such as K₂Ni(SO₄)₂. Presumably the nickel is octahedrally coordinated in these crystals too, with two of the eight oxygens not having any nickel neighbors.

  It will be a pleasure to be with you for a short while in London. We had a good tine with Professor Syhelm, and hope that we can see him and his family briefly during our stay.

  Love from

  Linus Pauling

• Letter from LP to Walter Strong RE: States he will be leaving next week for Europe and it won't be possible to stop in Long Beach and discuss his research. [Letter from Walter Strong to LP May 25, 1957] [Filed under LP Science: Box #11.088, Folder #88.13]
• Letter from R. Walter Schlesinger to LP RE: Tells LP that he feels he cannot stand against the tests on the basis of scientific knowledge because he doesn't know enough about the dangers of fallout to do so. Says he is against the tests, however. Handwritten notes, "write thanking him" and "ans'd." [Filed under LP Safe Contents, Drawer 2 Folder 2.001]
• Newspaper Clipping: "Pauling to Tell Scientists' Fear of Atom Tests," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1957. [Filed under LP Biographical: (LP Scrapbooks, 1956-1960), Box #6.007, Folder #7.35]
• Newspaper Clipping: "Pauling to Tell Scientists' Fear of Atom Tests," Los Angeles Times, June 1, 1957. [Filed under LP Newspaper Clippings: 1957n.20]
• Newspaper Clipping: "The Danger from Fallout," Friends Journal, June 1, 1957. [Filed under LP Biographical: (LP Scrapbooks, 1956-1960), Box #6.007, Folder #7.35]
• Note from Kanji Otani to LP RE: Supports his stand against atom bomb testing and requests that he write his opinion to the journal of the Nagoya RI Researching Conference, which he is now the commissioner of. [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Otani, Kanji, 1954-1957, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1967-1968, 1974, 1978, 1980, 1982), #297.6]