Linus Pauling

Linus Carl Pauling (February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific topics.New Scientist called him one of the 20 greatest scientists of all time, and as of 2000, he was rated the 16th most important scientist in history. Pauling was one of the founders of the fields of quantum chemistry and molecular biology.

For his scientific work, Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954. In 1962, for his peace activism, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This makes him the only person to be awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes. He is one of only four individuals to have won more than one Nobel Prize (the others being Marie Curie, John Bardeen, and Frederick Sanger). Pauling is also one of only two people to be awarded Nobel Prizes in different fields, the other being Marie Curie. Pauling also worked on DNA's structure, a problem which was solved by James Watson, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.