One of the twentieth century's greatest chemists, Linus Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on February 28, 1901. He became interested in chemistry early in life as a result of his work with a home chemistry set, earning a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Oregon State College (now University) in 1922 and a doctorate in physical chemistry from California Institute of Technology in 1925. During post-doctoral studies in Europe, Pauling worked with some of the most famous chemists and physicists of the time, Erwin Schrödinger in Zurich, Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, William Henry Bragg (l862-l942) in London, and Arnold Sommerfeld in Münich.

Some of Pauling's earliest work dealt with the structure of molecules. Molecular models of the 1920s generally assumed that chemical bonding occurred between stable electrons. Gilbert Newton Lewis, for example, drew valence electrons in an atom at the corners of a cube. Bonds formed when...