Letter from Linus Pauling to Mansoor ul Hassan. October 23, 1953. Page 1  Larger Images / More Information. 1 p.  View Transcript

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Activity Listings

• AHP writes cheque to: Susie Perry [Boormans Market]: amount: $14.00 [Filed under LP Biographical: Box #4.022, Folder #1]
• AHP writes cheque to: Water Fritts: amount: $8.00 [Filed under LP Biographical: Box #4.022, Folder #1]
• Letter from Archibald Gillies of the Dominion Rubber Co. Ltd., to LP RE: reminds LP of a discussion that they had three years earlier at LP's C.I.C. lecture tour at which they discussed Mr. Gillies' work with dichlorophenoxyacetic acids. He sends LP diagrams and a report concerning his work and requests criticism. [Letter of response from LP to Dr. Gillies December 10, 1953] [Filed under G: Correspondence 1953, Box #140, Folder #17]
• Letter from Frederick Rossini, National Resource Council to LP RE: Discusses the values of six constants that are determined by experimental data. The purpose is to determine if a review is required. Enclosed is a paper that LP coauthored in 1951 that reviews the constants. [Filed under LP Science: 14.028, Folder 28.1].
• Letter from George Gamow to LP. [Reply from LP to Gamow December 9, 1953]. [Filed under LP Science: Box 9.001, Folder 1.43]

  Oct 22d 1953

  Dear Pauling,

  I am playing with complex organic molecules (what I never did before!), am getting some amusing results, and would like to hear your opinion about it.

  Ever since I read the article of Watson and Crick last June, I was trying to figure out how a long number written in a fourdigital system (i.e. nucleic acid molecule) can determine (uniquely) a correspondingly long word based on 20-letter-alphabet (i.e. an enzyme molecule). Along the lines of key & lock ideas, one could think about different amino acids as fitting into quadrangular loops formed by four bases in the DNA chain. But there are only five different types of such loops ie such as [diagram of types], etc. *

  For a while I have thought that things can be helped by permitting 1-4 (excited) and 3-2 (excited) bonds since, indeed, this would lead to twenty different types of loops. But it would lead to a complete break up of the original W&C model of replication process and is apparently inacceptable.

  1-Adenine, 2-Thymine

  3-Guanine, 4-Cytosine.

  It just [occurred] to me today that another way of get[t]ing 20 different loops would be the use of triangular combinations with three arbitrary bases at vertices: [drawing of triangular combinations] etc. 4x5x6/1x2x3 = 20.

  And, indeed, the W&C model permits such shapes because of helical nature of DNA. On the surface of a cylinder the bases will form a system of rombs with three independent and one dependent and one dependent vertices. A, B, and C can be any of the four bases, while D is determined completely by B (D=2 if B=1, ect) [drawing of cylinder]

  Thus, there are 20 different types of such rombs, and I wonder [whether] the 20 amino acids "vital for life" are just those which would fit into these 20 different "locks". *) What do you think about it? It would be wonderful if it could be true!

  Yours

  Geo Gamow

  *) The shape of these loops should also explain the fact that only L-amino acids could be used for building of proteins by DNA.

• Letter from L.A. DuBridge to Stephen Stackpole, Executive Assistant, Carnegie Corporation of NY RE: meeting with Davis and Alty on the Caltech campus. [Letter of response from Stackpole to DuBridge October 19, 1953]. [Filed under: LP Biographical, Box 1.030, Folder 30.4]
• Letter from LP to Dr. John T. Edsall RE: writes that with the help of Dr. Itano he submits a list of recommendations of people to take part in the symposium. [previous letter from LP to Dr. Edsall October 7, 1953] [Filed under LP Correspondence: Box #106, Folder #5: file (John T. Edsall)].
• Letter from LP to K.S. Pitzer, Dean of the College of Chemistry, U.C. Berkeley RE: in response to Dean Pitzer's request, gives his opinion about Dick Powell. [Letter from Dean K. S. Pitzer to LP October 19, 1953, letter from Dean Pitzer to LP December 18, 1953] [Filed under LP Correspondence: Box #308, Folder #7 (Pitzer, Kenneth)].
• Letter from Ole Lilleland to LP, RE: Lilleland thanks LP for his speech to the F.D.R. Club. Lilleland thinks that such a presentation keeps up the light of liberalism. [Filed under LP Speeches: (Speeches by Linus Pauling, 1953), Box 1953s, Folder 1953s.14]
• Letter to Mr. Pat Du Bois RE from LP: regrets to inform that he will not be able to accept the invitation to speak at the luncheon, as he will be away in Israel dedicating the Weizmann Institute. [Letter to LP October 20, 1953] [Filed under A: Correspondence 1953, Box #12.19]
• Telegram from Lester Kieft to LP, RE: Kieft asks if LP wil lbe able to give a lecture on molecular medicine at Bucknell University in Lewisburg on November 11th since LP will be in Meadville at the same time. The speaking engagement would offer LP an honorarium of $100. [LP’s reply October 23, 1953] [Filed under LP Speeches: (Speeches by Linus Pauling, 1953), Box 1953s, Folder 1953s.17]