Audio Clips

"Linus Pauling, Crusading Scientist." 1977. Produced for NOVA by Robert Richter/WGBH-Boston. Reacting to the Nobel Chemistry Prize. (1:22)

Get the Flash Player to see this audio player.

Download Audio File (Mp3) File to Your Computer

Transcript

Linus Pauling: Well I was pretty pleased of course. I, I had thought, perhaps I shall get the Nobel Prize in 1931 when my papers on the nature of the chemical bond appeared. Professor Noyes, who was the Chairman of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, said that I probably would get the Nobel Prize sometime. 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 make the sort, I don't do the sort of work for which Nobel Prizes are given, they say the most important discovery or invention in chemistry during the preceding year. And what I was doing was to build up a body of understanding, not making a single discovery or invention, or minor ones such the oxygen meter, that wouldn't qualify, but...the Nobel Committee, finally, in 1954 decided that this whole body of knowledge that I had contributed quite a lot to had changed the nature of chemistry so much that it was justified to give me the Nobel Prize. Well I was pretty pleased that I had got it.

Clip

Full Work

Date: 1977
Genre: sound
ID: 1977v.66
Copyright: More Information

< Previous Audio Clip     Learning of the Nobel Chemistry Prize.

Back to Audio Clips Index

Next Audio Clip > Pauling's Early Start in Chemistry.