March 3, 1959 - Linus Pauling Day-by-Day

Check from AHP to Crellin Pauling for $350.00. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Bank Statements and Canceled Checks, December 1957-December 1959), Box #4.025, Folder #25.2]

Letter from Appleton, Rice and Perrin to LP RE: Informs that they are sending LP a check for $800 on behalf of the Ciba Foundation. Requests that LP sign and return a receipt. [Filed under LP Speeches: 1959s2.2]

Letter from Dr. William Dock, Professor of Medicine, State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, to LP RE: Tells about one of the three groups studying sickle cell anemia, says their study ended in proving that sickling was due to the insolubility of sickle cell ferrohemoglobin, explains about the different tracks the scientists went off on, says he started studying magnetic properties, says it led nowhere except to magnets that are now used in ballistocardiographs all over the world and especially in Russia, and says it was from reading a page of LP's book. [Letter from LP to Dock March 17, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (D: Correspondence, 1959), #98.24]

Letter from Edward Bates to LP, RE: gives LP and update of graphs that have been finished and payments tat have been received so far. Bates Also notes that LP owes him for 11 hours at $3.00 per hour. [Filed under LP Biographical: (Business and Financial: Assorted Bills, Receipts and Invoices, 1951-1962), Box #4.060, Folder #60.5]

Letter from Gladys Gates to LP RE: Invites LP to attend a supper in honor of Dr. Jamshed Fozdar on March 8. [Letter from Harris to Gates March 5, 1959] [Filed under LP Speeches: 1959s.4]

Letter from Gordon Allen to LP RE: Says he is performing some experiments on thermoelectric effects such as changing heat into electricity, says his science teacher said he should know something about metallic bonding and how electrons travel along a wire, and asks if LP could send him the information or tell him where to find it. [Letter from LP to Allen March 3, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (A: Correspondence, 1959), #13,2]

Letter from Graham DuShane, Science, to LP RE: Requests LP's advice about a manuscript by R.A. Horne on "The Role of Water in the Problem of the Stability of Oxyhemoglobin," submitted for publication in Science. [Letter from LP to DuShane March 16, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Science), #374.6]

Letter from Harry Harrison to LP, RE: Harrison is inviting LP to speak at a testimonial dinner in LP's honor. There will be several hundred people attending to hear LP as the guest speaker. The tentative dates are April 24th or 26th. [LP's reply March 18, 1959] [Filed under LP Peace: (SANE, 1958-1966, 1982), Box #4.003, Folder #3.2]

Letter from J. J. Fritz, Pennsylvania State University, to Joan Harris, Secretary to LP, RE: Discusses travel arrangements for LP's visit to Penn State in April. Suggests various travel options. [Letter from Harris to Fritz February 24, 1959, Letter from Fritz to LP March 3, 1959] [Filed under LP Speeches: 1959s.17]

Letter from J. J. Fritz, Pennsylvania State University, to LP RE: Explains that he has written to Joan Harris with details of travel arrangements for LP's upcoming visit to Penn State. Discusses details LP's visit and of the proposed program. [Letter from Fritz to Harris March 3, 1959] [Filed under LP Speeches: 1959s.17]

Letter from J. J. Wadsworth to LP, RE: Wadsworth appreciates LP's words of support in what is trying to be accomplished in Geneva. It is Wadsworth's hope that an agreement can be reached that will result in the discontinuance of nuclear tests. [LP's letter February 27, 1959] [Filed under LP Peace: (Materials re: World Peace Research Organization, 1958-1960), Box #6.003, Folder #3.1]

Letter from LP to Everett L. Millard, CURE RE: Says he was interested to read their ms Freedom in a Federal World, returns it under separate copy, says the book seems unrealistic as it makes hardly any mention of the greatest peril of their time that is nuclear warfare, says it lacks organization and thesis so he can't present a detailed criticism, gives a few details that could be fixed, and says that it could be made valuable through revision. [Letters from Millard to LP February 17, 1959, February 8, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (C: Correspondence, 1959), #75.2]

Letter from Leon J. Ricks to LP RE: Repeats his request that LP read his transcript and comment on whether it is at all conceivable. Requests that LP at least return the transcript he sent. [Letter from LP to Ricks January 18, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (R: Correspondence, 1959), #341.5]

Letter from Mrs. Charles E. Ide to LP RE: Writes LP and asks whether her current reserach is in line with any projec under LP's supervision so that she can become a useful member of one of his research teams. Provides her basic information and a brief summary of her hypothesis and research. [Letter from LP to Ide March 16, 1959] [Filed under LP Science: Orthomolecular Medicine and Mental Health: Materials re: Ford Foundation grants for the study of mental disorders, 1955-1966: Box #11.089, Folder #89.11]

Letter from Professor L. O. Brockway, Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, to LP RE: Says he is sorry LP won't be able to stay with them in Ann Arbor, says they have arranged to have his lecture at 12 because too many people have classes at 11 or 1 or 2:00, and says they can have lunch at 1:00 and leave his afternoon free for other appointments. [Letters from LP to Brockway February 20, 1959, March 16, 1959] [Filed under LP Correspondence: (Brockway, Lawrence O.), #31.11]

Memo from LP to himself. [Filed under LP Science: Box #10.003, Folder #3.12]

3 March 1959

To: Linus Pauling

From: Linus Pauling

Subject: Von Neumann

John von Neumann in his book The Computer and the Brain discusses the natural nervous system. He says that the natural computer element, the neurone, has a rather slow reaction time, one one-hundredth of a second - that is, slow compared with modern artificial devices. He says or implies that the method of transmitting information by digital pulse trains, interpreted in terms of pulse-time density to give digital-type logical information but analog-type quantitative information, will reduce the effective computing speed by a factor of 10 for each effective decimal place of accuracy. On the other hand, he suggests that the effective memory capacity of the brain must be of the order of 10²⁰ decimal digits, in order to record a lifetime of experienced sensations. Hence the brain, compared with modern machines, is a very reliable and compact computer, with a low speed and a low order of accuracy in individual calculations. It has an enormous (inactive) memory capacity, and a large (active) arithmetical-logical assembly (highly parallel operation), and great economy in power requirements.

Von Neumann's argument is that since the brain has to control such a highly complex organization as the human body, it must carry out long calculations. The brain cannot work to 10 or 12 decimal accuracy, which we know to be necessary in artificial computers to retain two or three figure final accuracy, and hence he argues that some different and unknown form of mathematics must be employed in the brain to produce its satisfactory results. He says that the loss of accuracy at each stage of a long calculation may possibly be eliminated by carrying out a large number of independent calculations at each stage and evaluating the results statistically. Because of its large active assembly the brain is equipped to do this. The second point, suggested by the reviewer in Nature (A. H. Armstrong, Nature 183, 350 (1959)), is that the brain never does any arithmetically deep calculations (that is, long calculations), but merely makes minor interpolations, variations, and extensions to a vast stock of "tabulated solutions," which it has been accumulating on a basis of trial and error and statistical selection, in its memory throughout the course of its development from a single cell. Really basic problems, such as digestion of food and circulation of the blood, have perhaps been tabulated prenatally for a reference in this way. (I would point out the ability of the chick to interpret impressions from its eyes.) Slightly less basic problems, such as learning to walk, have not been solved prior to birth, and it takes the infant's brain-computer many months to solve this problem. Even the adult's brain-computer may take a week to solve the rather simple problem of riding a bicycle. When obtained, this grid of experimental results is stored in the memory for future use by simple interpolation.

Much of the above material is quoted verbatim from the review in Nature.

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