The Corvallist

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Linus Pauling's Birthday

In addition to being National Pancake Day, today is the birthday of Linus Pauling, founding father of microbiology, Nobel prize winner and arguably the most famous graduate of OSU. Pauling is the only person to have won two individual Nobel prizes, one for chemistry in 1954 and one for peace in 1962. The Linus Pauling Institute at the university is still going strong, and the kids at Linus Pauling Middle School had a giant birthday party for him today.

As far as famous Corvallis residents go, it's nice to see a scientist at the top of the list, raking in acclaim (and being celebrated by kids in junior high, no less!), rather than a rock star.

posted by Corvallist at 10:02 PM

3 Comments:

  • Thanks for the reminder. I was lucky enough to get Linus Pauling to autograph the Freshman Chemistry text that he had written, when I was a grad student at OSU. He laughed when I handed him the book since it was 1983 and I had used the book in 1952.

    By Blogger Michael, at 9:06 AM  

  • Did you know the Wikipedia page for Corvallis says both "Lowest church attendance per capita of any city in the nation (appx. 20%)" AND "Highest number of churches per capita of any city in the nation"? Something doesn't seem right with that, and there are no sources for these tidbits of info.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 9:41 AM  

  • I was a chemistry teacher and Pauling was my first and last idol. Why no more like him?

    By Blogger Si's blog, at 4:44 PM  

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