The Third Man of the Double Helix by Wilkins

The Third Man of the Double Helix by Wilkins

The Nobel Prize for the discovery of the structure of DNA was given to three scientists - James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins. It was the experimental work of Wilkins and his colleague Rosalind Franklin that provided the clues to the structure. Here, Wilkins, who died in 2004, gives us his own account of his life, his early work in physics, the tensions and exhilaration of working on DNA, and his much discussed difficult relationship with his colleague Rosalind. This is a highly readable, and often moving account from a highly distinguished scientist who played one of the key roles in the historic discovery of the molecule behind inheritance.

Review from previous edition No intelligent person who wishes to know how the universe works should fail to read this bookNot only is it completely understandable to the layman, it is also often very amusing * Arthur C. Clarke, Times Higher Education Supplement *

Maurice Wilkins was born at Pongaroa, New Zealand, in 1916. He studied physics at Cambridge, graduating in 1938, and went on to work in J. T. (later Sir John) Randall's research group at Birmingham. In 1944 he moved to Berkeley, California, to work on the Manhattan Project. After the war he joined Randall's new biophysics group at St Andrews. The group moved in 1946 to King's College London and it was here where Wilkins began X-ray diffraction studies of DNA. These X-ray measurements, made with Rosalind Franklin and others, eventually established the correctness of the double helix structure of DNA proposed in 1953 by Watson and Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. In 1962, Crick, Watson, and Wilkins were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for this discovery. Emeritus Professor of Biophysics at King's College London, Maurice Wilkins lives in London with his wife Pat.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192806673
ISBN 10	019280667X
Title	The Third Man of the Double Helix
Author	Wilkins
Series	Popular Science Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	2005-07-14
Number of pages	314
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.