The Secret of Life by Howard Markel

Author:Howard Markel [Markel, Howard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

THE ENCOUNTER, WROTE WATSON, “opened up Maurice to a degree I had not seen before. Now that I need no longer merely imagine the emotional hell he had faced during the past two years. He could treat me almost as a fellow collaborator rather than as a distant acquaintance with whom close confidences inevitably led to painful misunderstandings.”34 In 2001, in the opening pages of a companion memoir entitled Genes, Girls and Gamow: After the Double Helix, Watson told the story even more vividly: “Maurice—bristling with anger at having been shackled now for almost two years by Rosalind’s intransigence—let loose the, until then, closely guarded King’s secret that DNA existed in a paracrystalline (B) form as well as a crystalline (A) form.”35

As Watson recalled in The Double Helix, “then, the even more important cat was let out of the bag: since the middle of the summer Rosy had had evidence for a new three-dimensional form of DNA. It occurred when the DNA molecules were surrounded by a large amount of water.” Now it was Watson’s turn to be unable to contain himself as he practically pleaded, “what the pattern was like?” Maurice turned around and quietly walked into the next room, reached into a file drawer and retrieved a photographic “print of the new form they called the ‘B’ structure.” The print was so freshly-made that it still reeked of the vinegar and water solution used in the dark room.36

What followed was the most important moment of James Watson’s life. Today, it is almost impossible to find a scientist or science buff who cannot tell you the gist of the episode. In keeping with his intention of memorializing the greatest scientific discovery of the twentieth century, Watson’s love of literature, motion pictures, and good storytelling kicked into high gear. The words he chose, carefully written and rewritten in many successive drafts of his memoir, are as memorable as a Mozart measure:

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