He was an American scientist who was born in Portland in the United States. He is the first son of his father Herman Henry William Pauling and his mother Lucy Isabelle “Belle”. He had two younger sisters, Pauline and Lucile. His father’s occupation was a pharmaceutical salesman. He had completed his graduation from the Oregon State University with a degree in chemical engineering. After his graduation, he received Ph.D. in physical chemistry and mathematical physics from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena in 1925.
Nobel Prize in Chemistry: The chemical bond
Linus C. Pauling was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1955 for this work in the field of chemistry. He began publishing papers on “the nature of the chemical bond†in late 1920s. Between 1937 and 1938, He joined the department of chemistry at Cornell University where he completed his widely known textbook “The Nature of the Chemical Bondâ€. After this work, he received a Nobel Prize for his work on the nature of the chemical bond or Pauling’s chemical bond and the implementations of the study in the interpretation of the complex structures. In that era, his book attracted the most attention as “chemistry’s most prominent book and its effective bible”. However, up to now, many scientists cite this work in their modern articles and research papers in prestigious journals.
Three important concepts of chemistry in his noble work
His work further introduced the theory of the orbital hybridization with the help of electrons. In atomic theory, an atomic orbital describes a pair of electrons such as the s, the p, the d, and the f out of which usually s and p orbitals help in bonding. In one carbon atom 1 2s and 3 2p orbitals combined together to get 4 equivalent new orbitals termed as sp³ hybrid orbitals, that would be suitable to narrate some of the carbon compounds like methane. When 1 2s orbital mixed with only 2 of the total 2p orbitals in order to form 3 equivalent orbitals which are also termed as sp² (hybrid) orbitals, with spare unhybridized 2p orbital, that would be relevant to report definite some unsaturated compounds of carbon like ethylene. With the help of this theory, other kinds of molecules also established different hybridization patterns.
After this theory he discovered another field which discussed the relationships between the covalent and the ionic bonding. In Ionic bonding, the electrons during combination are transferred among the atoms, and in the covalent bonding, equivalent electrons of the atoms are shared. He showed that both bonding types were just the opposite. In the area of quantum mechanics, a polar species AB has a combination of wave functions for covalent and ionic molecules. Herein, in this particular case, the concept of Pauling’s electronegativity is useful. The extent of the ionic character of bond will be described by the difference in the electronegativity between the atomic pair.
The third topic, Pauling addressed under the entitled as “the nature of the chemical bond” was considered as structure of the aromatic hydrocarbons, mainly benzene. The German scientist Friedrich Kekulé was given the best elucidation of structure of benzene whereas Pauling introduced an intermediate structure based on the quantum mechanics which was the combination of each of two structures mentioned by Kekule. The Intermediate structure was just like the superposition of the structures preferably than the rapid interconversion of the two structures of benzene. Later, this phenomenon was termed as “resonance”.
In this particular situation, both hybridization and polar bonding mentioned resembles this phenomenon. The resultant of the three phenomenon to achieve an intermediate result involved combining of more than only an electronic structure. These outcomes allowed the prediction and calculation of bond angles and molecular structures.
