Word: x-rayed
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Franklin believed deeply in the primacy of experimental data: Pauling might have been lucky with his flashy model building, but the best way to understand DNA, she insisted, was to make high-quality X-ray images first and speculate afterward about what they meant. "Only a genius of [Pauling's] stature," writes Watson, summarizing Franklin's attitude, "could play like a ten-year-old boy and still get the right answer." Wilkins made the mistake of declaring publicly that Franklin's images suggested that DNA had a helical shape. Franklin was incensed. He had no right, she believed, to even...
Besides, they couldn't give up, because Pauling was now on the case for sure. He had written to Wilkins, then to Wilkins' boss, J.T. Randall, asking for copies of King's X-ray images. Both men declined. But Pauling was coming to a Royal Society meeting in May 1952; it would be tougher to refuse him in person. As Pauling was preparing to board a plane in New York, however, the U.S. government seized his passport, citing what they considered his dangerous left-wing political views. While that setback might delay Pauling, Watson and Crick knew it would...
...King's College group, meanwhile, pushed ahead with its DNA research. Franklin kept working to perfect her X-ray images. In May 1952 she took one that would prove crucially important--though until the day she died, she would never realize it. By increasing the humidity in her lab apparatus, she and graduate student Raymond Gosling discovered that DNA could assume two forms. When sufficiently moist, the molecule would stretch and get thinner, and the pictures that resulted were much sharper than anything anyone had ever seen. They called the wetter version the B form...
...helical, which she still insisted was unsupported by evidence. "Rosy by then was hardly able to control her temper," he writes, "and her voice rose as she told me that the stupidity of my remarks would be obvious if I would stop blubbering and look at her X-ray evidence...
...decided to risk a full explosion," he continues. "Without further hesitation I implied that she was incompetent in interpreting X-ray pictures. If only she would learn some theory, she would understand how her supposed antihelical features arose from the minor distortions needed to pack regular helices into a crystalline lattice." The explosion occurred. "Suddenly, Rosy came from behind the lab bench that separated us and began moving toward me. Fearing that in her hot anger she might strike me, I grabbed up the Pauling manuscript and hastily retreated toward the open door. My escape was blocked by Maurice [Wilkins...