For Watson and Crick, DNA’s double helix structure wasn’t just an interesting solution to a difficult puzzle or an exciting pathway to fame: it also embodied the elegance in nature that led them to become scientists in the first place.
Of course, as soon as they discovered the double helix structure, Crick and Watson knew that their lives were going to change forever. They had solved an important scientific problem, and their research had the potential to profoundly transform biology and genetics. At the very least, elder scientists could no longer dismiss them, their methods, or their work—they had clearly won acceptance in the scientific community.
But the double helix structure is truly remarkable because it explains itself: its form reveals its function. In fact, the double helix’s form is so clear and its function is so efficient that, when Crick and Watson discovered it, they erased all doubt that DNA could be “the secret of life.” First, the double helix structure can carry an irregular series of nitrogenous bases, which encode genetic information. Second, it allows DNA to easily replicate itself—the double helix’s two strands can easily separate and serve as templates for the creation of more DNA. (Crick and Watson would later discover that this process depends on mRNA, a molecule related to DNA.) This replication process enables organisms to grow over time. It’s difficult to imagine a more effective or less complex form for DNA to take.
In this sense, Crick and Watson’s solution was even better than they had hoped for: it left scientists with no doubts about DNA’s role or significance. In fact, the double helix was so persuasive because of its simplicity. It shows that, even if biology is endlessly complicated, nature’s beauty truly lies in its elegance and efficiency.
The Double Helix Structure Quotes in The Double Helix
I feel the story should be told, partly because many of my scientific friends have expressed curiosity about how the double helix was found, and to them an incomplete version is better than none. But even more important, I believe, there remains general ignorance about how science is “done.” That is not to say that all science is done in the manner described here. This is far from the case, for styles of scientific research vary almost as much as human personalities. On the other hand, I do not believe that the way DNA came out constitutes an odd exception to a scientific world complicated by the contradictory pulls of ambition and the sense of fair play.
[Maurice Wilkins] emphasized that he wanted to put off more model building until Rosy was gone, six weeks from then. Francis seized the occasion to ask Maurice whether he would mind if we started to play about with DNA models. When Maurice’s slow answer emerged as no, he wouldn’t mind, my pulse rate returned to normal. For even if the answer had been yes, our model building would have gone ahead.
Suddenly I became aware that an adenine-thymine pair held together by two hydrogen bonds was identical in shape to a guanine-cytosine pair held together by at least two hydrogen bonds. All the hydrogen bonds seemed to form naturally; no fudging was required to make the two types of base pairs identical in shape.
[…]
The hydrogen-bonding requirement meant that adenine would always pair with thymine, while guanine could pair only with cytosine. Chargaff’s rules then suddenly stood out as a consequence of a double-helical structure for DNA. Even more exciting, this type of double helix suggested a replication scheme much more satisfactory than my briefly considered like-with-like pairing.
However, we both knew that we would not be home until a complete model was built in which all the stereo-chemical contacts were satisfactory. There was also the obvious fact that the implications of its existence were far too important to risk crying wolf. Thus I felt slightly queasy when at lunch Francis winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life.
Rosy’s instant acceptance of our model at first amazed me. I had feared that her sharp, stubborn mind, caught in her self-made antihelical trap, might dig up irrelevant results that would foster uncertainty about the correctness of the double helix. Nonetheless, like almost everyone else, she saw the appeal of the base pairs and accepted the fact that the structure was too pretty not to be true. Moreover, even before she learned of our proposal, the X-ray evidence had been forcing her more than she cared to admit toward a helical structure. The positioning of the backbone on the outside of the molecule was demanded by her evidence and, given the necessity to hydrogen-bond the bases together, the uniqueness of the A-T and G-C pairs was a fact she saw no reason to argue about.
Fortunately, by the time my letter reached Cal Tech the base pairs had fallen out. If they had not, I would have been in the dreadful position of having to inform Delbrück and Pauling that I had impetuously written of an idea which was only twelve hours old and lived only twenty-four before it was dead.
Pauling’s reaction was one of genuine thrill, as was Delbrück’s. In almost any other situation Pauling would have fought for the good points of his idea. The overwhelming biological merits of a self-complementary DNA molecule made him effectively concede the race. He did want, however, to see the evidence from King’s before he considered the matter a closed book. This he hoped would be possible three weeks hence.
For a while Francis wanted to expand our note to write at length about the biological implications. But finally he saw the point to a short remark and composed the sentence: “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”
The Double Helix Structure Symbol Timeline in The Double Helix
