Pauling convinced Robert Corey: Corey had considerable experience with X-ray studies of proteins already. Many years later, Pauling commented graciously that it may actually have been Corey who convinced him.

“In the spring of 1948”: Pauling 1996. I should note that in an earlier account, Pauling 1955, Pauling says that he found only one of the two helices in Oxford, while the other was discovered by Herman Branson when Pauling returned to Caltech.

Pauling created a helix: Olby 1974, p. 278, gives an excellent, if somewhat technical, description of the road to the alpha-helix.

“They have about five times”: Pauling wrote to chemist and crystallographer Edward Hughes. Cited on The Pauling Blog website, under “An Era of Discovery in Protein Structure.”

Even during a discussion with the famous: Pauling admitted in later interviews that he had been concerned that the Cavendish group might beat him to the punch in checking the models. Olby 1974, p. 281; Hager 1995, p. 330.