9 February 1954

Dear Peter:

I am glad to have your last letter, which has arrived. I was sorry when I heard that you had gone to Greece. I would have cabled you except for the fact that you had said in your letters that you were not going to go. Also, I am surprised that you did not check up immediately at the University or the Technical University in Athens -- I had informed them that we were not coming, so that you could have found out what the situation was.

I am sending you under separate cover a book "Physical Chemistry" by McDougall, published in 1943. It is orange in color, and so may be the book that you used, although it does not have your name in it, and as I look through it I do not see any sign that it was ever opened. Perhaps this is the book that you used, but my copy. If this is not right, please let me know.

I am also sending, in another package, the Physical Chemistry written by Walter J. Moore, with some annotations by me. This book may well treat almost all of the subjects that should be handled in a modern course in physical chemistry.

I am not interested in having a hasty opinion from you about topics in these two books, but rather a considered one, if you are interested enough to give it. I think that it would be wise for you, if you want to go into this matter, to go through each of the two books section by section and write down briefly your opinion of each section. Perhaps a better way would be to check the topics that occur in one book or the other or both, making an outline of these topics and under each topic a statement about the nature of the treatment given in each book, the desirability of discussing the topic in the course in physical chemistry, and recommendations as to how the topic could best be handled.

One simple question that I want the answer to is how much you learned about, for example, each of the seventeen chapters in Moore's book when you took your course in physical chemistry. Also, how much do you think it would have been wise for you to have learned -- should the topics of these chapters be included in the course?

Probably it would be wise for you not to embark on a program that requires say 150 hours of work until it seems worth while to do so. You might carry out a preliminary survey, in, say, 50 hours, and then we could decide whether to go further or not.

What I have in mind is the possibility of writing a textbook of physical chemistry. If you were interested, you and I might write it together. I don't think that it would be worth while to attempt this joint work, however, unless you were interested. You probably cannot decide now, but should be able to decide after some preliminary work.

At the present time there is, I think, no really satisfactory modern textbook of physical chemistry for undergraduates; Walter Moore's books comes closer to being satisfactory than any other, in my opinion, but I think that it could be improved on. In some respects it is, I think, too advanced for the first course in physical chemistry.

There is an interesting situation in physical chemistry. When I heard the figures last, about three years ago, approximately 80 percent of the schools were using the Daniels-Gettman text. I don't know how many students of physical chemistry there are in the country, but a reasonably good textbook of physical chemistry might sell 2000 copies per year or 2500.

I have not wanted to get involved in writing a textbook of physical chemistry, including chemical thermodynamics, because it is a nuisance to decide how best to present chemical thermodynamics. There are, however, several good books on chemical thermodynamics available now, and, moreover, I think that perhaps physical chemistry should place more emphasis on statistical mechanics than at present, with only a small amount of chemical thermodynamics, which would then be taught more thoroughly in a separate course. Accordingly I have in mind the possibility of writing a textbook on physical chemistry with only the minimum of chemical thermodynamics in it.

I think that I asked you in my earlier letter how much statistical mechanics you know. If you have a chance to attend lectures on statistical mechanics, it might be worth while for you to do so, and to work enough problems to get a good understanding of the subject. I think that it is a most valuable part of modern theoretical science. I have in mind giving a very brief basic discussion of the subject, including the Boltzmann principle, and then some applications, such as the theory of dielectric constant due to dipoles, the Einstein theory and the Debye theory of the heat capacity of solids, and so on.

I have just worked out a set of atomic coordinates for my collagen structure. It is a structure that I discovered about a year ago. I don't think that it has any unsatisfactory features, but it has not yet been subjected to very extensive experimental test.

Aunt Beth is in the hospital, and is not allowed to see anybody. Mama and I thought that we would go up to Berkeley and see her, but have decided not to do so. Next month, a month from today, we are leaving for Yellow Springs, Ohio, where we are to stay for a week in connection with the Centennial Celebration of Antioch College. Perhaps we shall come back by way of Portland.

As to the Penguin books, I think that you might try the experiment of having all of them sent to me for a year. If, as you say, the total cost is about $50, I think that it would be worth while. I have not received any since about the first batch of about a dozen.

Please let me know how much I should reimburse you for the expenses of your travel to Greece

Love from

[Linus Pauling]

Linus Pauling:W

11 February 1954

Dr. Robley C. Williams

Virus Laboratory

University of California

Berkeley 4, Calif.

Dear Dr. Williams:

About two years ago you kindly sent me an electron-micrograph of a flagellum of a diphtheroid bacterium, Plate No. 389D. You also were good enough to send me a lantern slide. Professor Corey and Roger Hayward and I are preparing for the Scientific American an article on the structure of the α-keratin proteins, and we should like to use your electron micrograph as an illustration of helical structure. May we have your permission to do so?

With best regards, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

12 February 1954

Prof. David P. Shoemaker

Massacusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge 39, Massachusetts

Dear Dave:

I am pleased to hear from you. As to your first question, about enneamolybdomanganate ion, at the present time I do not have any plans, for the refinement of the structure. If you want to have one of your men work on the substance, please let me know. I can send you some crystals.

I have checked with Gunnar on the Brillouin section of the sigma phase paper, and have recommended that your discussion be shortened a bit. Also, I have told him that in my opinion the section shout the Curie temperature ought really to be left out. Moreover, I have recommended to him that he check through the whole manuscript again, to see if some additional shortening can be achieved without damage to the paper. With the situation as it is with Acta, I feel pretty sure that the present manuscript would be returned with a request that it be shortened, and I feel that it would be wise to do some of the shortening before submitting the manuscript. Both Gunnar and I think that Acta is the place for it to be published.

A reprint on ferromagnetism is being sent to you separately. Please let me know how you are feeling. I have heard that you got through your illness without any permanent damage, which makes me very happy.

My wife and I have just returned from Honolulu, where we had a three-weeks' stay, in large part vacation. I am putting in most of my time now on the problem of the structure of collagen.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

17 February 1954

Dr. Llewellyn H. Jones

Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory

P.O. Box 1663

Los Alamos, N.M.

Dear Dr. Jones:

I am pleased to have your letter of 3 February, and to see the manuscript that you have prepared for submission to the Journal of Chemical Physics. It seems to me that your discussion of your results is satisfactory, and I do not have any suggestions to make. I shall look forward to learning more about the crystal structure of the substance.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

22 February 1954

Dr. Donald T. Wagman

National Bureau of Standards

Washington 25, D.C.

Dear Dr. Wagman:

I am writing to ask about a value in Circular of the National Bureau of Standards 500; namely, the value given for the enthalpy of atomic boron.

On page 13 the enthalpy of atomic boron at 25° C is given as 97.2 kcal/mole. On page 939 the only specific reference for this value is Footnote 2, which reads "2. Calculated."

I have recently been making another effort to decide between the high value and the low value for the heat of sublimation of graphite, and in the course of this work I made a prediction of the heat of sublimation of boron. My predicted value for boron is 126.3 kcal/mole. This is not much different from the value 115 given in 1936 by Bichowsky and Rossini. They say in their book that the value is based upon their estimate of the heat of vaporization of boron.

My value is, however, considerably larger than the value 97.2 given in the Bureau of Standards Bulletin. The fact that your value is recorded to 0.1 kcal/mole suggests that it is more than an estimate. I shall be grateful to you for information on this point, and for your advice as to how much weight I should place on the Bureau of Standards value.

I notice that a considerable number of values have the same specific reference - the designation as calculated. I have not found a statement in the Bulletin about the significance of these values; perhaps you can point it out to me, or tell me what significance should in general be given to them.

With thanks, I am

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:W

Tuesday 23-2-54

Dear Daddy,

Thank you for you letter which I was pleased to receive. I had begun to get worried about you.

I can only write a little as I must race to catch the mail and get to sleep. This is a special purpose letter.

MacDougall is the text I used and that must be your copy. Mine is well worn.

I am working rather hard trying to find the absolute measurements. I lose the spectrometer in five days.

No penguins were sent in December. I shall get on the tail of Heffors. They have not been sending Science News, nor New Biology nor the Ving Penguins which I asked them to. Would you like all the past Science News*, about 15 books (30/) and New Biology 9 books (15/) sent? Do you want the Murder Mysteries?

May I wish you a very happy birthday? I hope the next twenty years bring as much happiness and excitement as the last twenty.

Much love from

Peter

* all available

25 February 1954

Dr. S. B. Hendricks

1118 Dale Drive

Silver Spring, Maryland

Dear Sterling:

I am looking forward to the symposium on nucleic acids, about which Dr. Bronk talked with me over the telephone, and I want to thank you for arranging the programs.

First, I do not plan to say anything, except what I need to say while serving as chairman. No time needs to be allotted to me.

You have suggested that the speakers be Watson or Crick, Kalckar, Hershey, Bolton, and Hotchkiss. I suggest that we include both Watson and Crick, and the other four. I have already spoken to Watson, who agrees that this would be satisfactory. I suggested that one of them describe the two-strand structure of DNA, and the other talk about its biological significances. I think that it is up to Watson and Crick to decide between themselves how to divide the whole subject up, and what their titles should be. The other speakers seem to me to be all right.

It is my understanding that Markham is not a very good speaker, and I suppose that it would not be possible to have Davidson from Glasgow or Todd from Cambridge to speak on their respective lines. Bronk mentioned over the telephone that it might be possible to bring an Englishman over. If Todd were going to be elected a Foreign Associate of the Academy this year, then perhaps he should be invited. I think that his work on the chemistry of nucleic acids is the most outstanding that has been done in recent years.

I am looking forward to seeing you and Edith again. Ava Helen and I had thought that we would not come to Washington this year (having got pretty tired of the place in December – except of course, for the stay with you, which bolstered our spirits considerably), but now we plan to come, because of the symposium.

Best regards to all of you.

Sincerely,

Linus Pauling:W

CC: Dr. Bronk