Book Report On The Double Helix

913 Words4 Pages

Introduction In the book The Double Helix, by James D. Watson, it explains the journey for James Watson and Francis Crick on finding the deoxyribonucleic acid, or better known as DNA, structure. It was a great book containing a lot of information on the journey. In the book, it contained great information on James Watson's life, Francis Crick's life, reasons they wanted to find the DNA structure, important people to the discovery, and the journey on finding the DNA structure. (Watson, 7-223)
Key Idea 1 James D. Watson was very smart and outgoing. He was a great scientist and was very smart. He also loved parties. He went to a house party, a garden party, a celebrating party, and many more parties throughout the book. This shows he was very …show more content…

Maurice Wilkins was a scientists who worked at King's College. He shared his ideas with both Francis and Crick. He also tells them if their project is right or wrong. Wilkins' partner, Rosalind Franklin, also helped with the discovery. Her lectures and advice was some of the most essential ingredients for the discovery. Although she was right most of the time, she was also wrong at times. She was for sure it was not a helix structure, when in fact it was. James Watson knew it was a helix and that is why Watson and Franklin got into feuds every now and then. Linus Pauling, a chemist at Cal Tech, was also very important to the discovery. He was one of the first ones to start to get into DNA. When he gave a presentation on what he discovered, that is when Watson and Crick really got into the DNA structure. "Chiefly it was a matter of five people: Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, and me," (Watson, 4). (Watson, 5-223)
Key Idea 5 It was a long journey for the discovery of DNA. It took a lot of patience and a lot of determination. It took a lot of years and scientists to figure it all out. At first, Watson and Crick were just picking up on what others had. Then, they started to make experiments of their own. All of their ideas were not right, but they were trying. Finally, they really started to think hard and put all the pieces together, their experiments and others, and found out the structure. In the end, they even gave credit to the other scientists who were very important.