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Chapter 11
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Double Helix, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Research, Adventure, and the Thrill of Discovery
Scientific Collaboration, Competition, and Community
DNA and the Secret of Life
Academic Life and the University
Summary
Analysis
Back in Cambridge, Watson explained his and Crick’s new findings to John and Elizabeth Kendrew over breakfast. Then, he rushed back to the lab. He and Crick needed new molecular models for their research on DNA, but it would take too long to get them constructed, so Watson started modifying their existing ones instead.
Watson’s excitement about his and Crick’s DNA research was palpable: he wanted to advance as much and as fast as he could. His enthusiasm in the lab showed that a year after finishing his PhD, he finally found a project that truly mattered to him.
Themes
At lunch, Crick usually theorized about muscle proteins with his friend Hugh Huxley, but that day, he was intensely focused on DNA. He and Watson discussed whether DNA was likely to have two, three, or four strands. Then, they speculated that magnesium or calcium ions were most likely to neutralize the phosphate groups.
Crick’s tendency to theorize over lunch shows yet again how he didn’t really distinguish work from leisure—he was always working on scientific problems, no matter what. It also shows how his scientific pursuits largely depended on discussion and collaboration with other researchers.
Themes
After lunch, Watson and Crick started experimenting with their makeshift molecular models. They quickly ran into a problem: the bonds between the different nucleotides in DNA could take any shape, which made determining the molecule’s structure difficult. But still, they made progress, and the quickly developed a three-chain structure consistent with Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin’s crystallography data. At dinner, Watson and Crick discussed their findings with Crick’s wife, Odile. She was delighted to hear about their progress, but she didn’t understand much about science, so conversation turned to a family friend’s upcoming marriage.
While Crick and Watson appeared to be making progress, their enthusiasm was clearly premature. In reality, they were still grappling with relatively elementary questions about DNA—like how many strands it has and what shape it takes. Although they did build one viable DNA model, they didn’t eliminate all of the other possible models. The reader likely already knows that DNA really has two chains, not three. Meanwhile, Odile Crick’s lack of knowledge about her husband’s work again suggests that Cambridge was strictly divided according to gender, with (mostly) men doing important scholarly work and (mostly) women doing the day-to-day labor that made this scholarly work possible.
Themes
The next day, Watson and Crick significantly improved their three-helix model. The next step was to compare it to Rosalind Franklin’s crystallography data. They called Maurice Wilkins. Although he sounded uninterested on the phone, he visited Cambridge the next day with his colleague Willy Seeds, Rosalind Franklin, and Franklin’s student R.G. Gosling.
Crick and Watson believed that they had made real progress toward a major discovery about the nature of life and heredity. Despite his aloof personality, Wilkins clearly took Crick and Watson seriously—otherwise, he wouldn’t have visited. Still, Crick and Watson’s model was purely theoretical, and they knew they needed some experimental data to back it up. Thus, despite all their ill will toward her, Rosalind Franklin would actually prove essential to their work.
Themes
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