"One could say that Pauling's 'failure' was to plant a lot of seeds, basic ideas, without working them out fully.... As soon as Slater gets an idea he works it out to the end before he gets a new one. But that is also dangerous, of course because you look at the trees and you don't see the forest...[Pauling] looks at the forest and lets other people...work out the specific individual things in detail; he has a terrifically lively intellect, reading [Pauling's] paper, the information here is just tremendous, the ideas flow out of the pen, and there are several lifetimes of work...to be done."
Sten Samson. Interviewed by Anthony Serafini for Linus Pauling: A Man and His Science. 1984.

Back to Quotes homepage.