Flashpoints : discovery of the structure of DNA.

Date:
1994
  • Audio

About this work

Description

Three crucial discoveries of the 20th century were nuclear energy, the computer and the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. This discovery turned the scientific world upside down. Different research groups were investigating the problem - Max Perrutz at the Cavendish, Max Delbruch at Caltech, Pasadena, and Irwin Shroedinger in Austria. Perrutz says Shroedinger who had the idea of an aperiodic crystal which copied itself, was completely wrong. Delbruch was a physicist, an outsider, working on the mechanism of inheritance, and he idealized and simplified the problem. These physicists brought new approaches to biology. Xray crystallography was a new technique which used xrays to work out the arrangement of atoms in molecules. Crick, the physicist, and Watson, the biologist, built models based on xray pictures. These had been developed at Kings College by Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.

Publication/Creation

London : BBC Radio 4, 1994.

Physical description

1 sound cassette (60 min.)

Notes

Broadcast on 7th September 1994

Creator/production credits

Presented by John Durant. Other participants are Max Perrutz; Edward Yocksin (historian); Sir walter Bodmer (Director, Imperial Cancer Research Fund); Sydney Brenner

Copyright note

BBC Radio

Type/Technique

Languages

Subjects

Where to find it

  • LocationStatusAccess
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