While reading the preface and the first couple of chapters, Watson introduces some of the scientists he worked with before he had worked with them. The first one he introduced was Francis Crick. He started out in physics, but changed to biology after reading a book called "What is Life?" By Erwin Schrödinger. Hischaracter is known to be loud and his laugh was to "which many dons would most certainly rebel if subjected to its shattering bang more than once a week". He then transitions to introducing another scientist who, like Francis, used X-ray diffraction as a principal research tool. His name was Maurice Wilkins, and he could not stand being in the same room as Francis for too long because of his booming voice. Maurice had an assistant named Rosalind Franklin, who was a crystallographer. She didn't think of herself as an assistant to Maurice. She was under the impression that she had been given DNA for her own problem.
My favorite quote from the book so far is from Watson talking about Crick. "He talked louder and faster than anyone else and, when he laughed, his location within Cavendish was obvious". I laughed out loud to myself after reading this sentence. I thought this book would be straightforward loaded with science, but it has proved me wrong by showing me some much needed humor.
This book sounds very interesting, even though it may not have the same kind of story as others, I still think it would be quite an interesting book, if not daunting. This reminds me of a book I read called The Elegant Universe, which was about string theory and black holes. They just seem very similar because they both address the smaller bits of life and seem like very scientific books.
ReplyDeleteCool science can be fun! I hope it goes more indepth about how the discovered the DNA. Thinking about something so small can change how we live and act is amazing.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a very interesting book, and seems like it would be kind of fun to read. The cool part about this is the science part does seem kind of cool to learn and hear about.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a novel that invovles a an egotistical scientist who had to deal with other egotistical scitentists... It seems like a novel that you can learn soooo much from, interesting.
ReplyDeleteSo... The double helix is like a journal with a narration. And I agree with Anderson's comment about how reading this here book makes science seem like an easy read, when it's not. (For me at least.) Still, it's nice to know that not all non-fiction books are to serious.
ReplyDelete