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Chapter 4
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
After the conference in Naples, Watson couldn’t stop thinking about Maurice Wilkins’s X-ray diffraction photo of DNA, the “key to the secret of life.” He also learned about Linus Pauling’s research on the alpha helix structure of polypeptide chains. Pauling was famously charismatic, and while his presentation on the alpha helix captivated his audiences, nobody knew if he was right. Still, if he was, then this would be most important discovery ever about macromolecule structure. Watson devoured Pauling’s articles and imagined writing about groundbreaking discoveries of his own.
Pauling’s research was significant because it showed that it was possible to understand molecules similar to DNA by modeling their structure. It represents a theoretical approach to understanding molecules, while Wilkins’s X-ray diffraction method represents an experimental approach. But both show that Watson’s work ended up relying on earlier scientists’ contributions. Watson’s fantasy about making a great discovery shows that curiosity wasn’t the only thing motivating his research—so were vanity and pride.
Themes
Watson concluded that he wanted to start learning about X-ray diffraction crystallography. There were three places he could go: Linus Pauling’s lab at Caltech, Maurice Wilkins’s at King’s College London, or Max Perutz’s at Cambridge. Watson chose Cambridge, and Salvador Luria arranged for him to move there, with the help of the Cambridge biochemist John Kendrew.
Again, Watson’s professional network opened doors for him all across the world—it was the key to his mobility and success as a young scholar. Meanwhile, Pauling, Wilkins, and Perutz had a complicated relationship: they were all researching the same topics for the same reasons, so they were both competing with one another and constantly improving on one another’s work.
Themes
Before leaving, Watson went to another conference in Copenhagen. He wanted to learn more about Linus Pauling’s experiments from Max Delbrück (Salvador Luria’s research collaborator and Pauling’s colleague at Caltech). But Delbrück didn’t have any insights. Fortunately, though, the conference’s parties showed Watson that scientists can have a fun social life.
Watson learned that conferences were as much about building relationships and having fun as actually learning about other scientists’ research. In turn, he starts to see the joy and excitement in working as a researcher, which would let him completely mix his professional, social, and personal lives. In other words, he’d get to think and talk about science 24/7.
Themes
