The Double Helix tells the story of the discovery of DNA's structure as seen through the eyes of the author, James D. Watson. The book starts in the fall of 1951 with Watson, an American postdoctoral fellow, arriving at Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University. Although, he originally worked on the three-dimensional structure of proteins, Watson gradually turned his attention to the structure of DNA and worked with Francis Crick on cracking DNA's secret structure. In a race to be the first to discover DNA's arrangement, Watson and Crick competed with Englanders Rosy Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, and American Linus Pauling. Each tries different methods to find DNA's structure. Each team tries different structures. Nevertheless, after two year of searching and many incorrect models, Watson and Crick get all of the pieces of the puzzle to fit together. In April of 1953, Watson and Crick went public with their findings in a monumental journal article, which proclaimed DNA's double helix. Watson and Crick won the race.

In the "Origins of Science," Philip Wi

Although Watson and Crick won the race and discovered DNA's double helix, the methods they used did not portray good etiquette. Watson and Crick knew that in order to build effective models, they would need much more research. They knew they needed to see Rosy's research, which she had been keeping a secret. Max Perutz, a member of the Medical Research Council and Watson's colleague, had access to Rosy's research. When Rosy completed a comprehensive summary of her accomplishments for the Medical Research Council, Max gave Watson and Crick a copy of her non-confidential report, without Rosy's consent or knowledge. Only after unethically going behind Rosy's back to obtain data were Watson and Crick able to solve the DNA structure problem.

Before Watson and Crick discovered the double helix, many believed that Linus Pauling had correctly unearthed DNA's composition. Pauling proposed a triple helix with the sugar-phosphate backbone in the middle of the structure. After Pauling's son Peter gave an advanced copy of his father's discovery to Watson and Crick, they discovered a flaw in Pauling's theory. This flaw made Pauling's structure un

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Approximate Word count = 774
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)