The Double Helix: Chapters 7–14

by James D. Watson
Francis Crick and James Watson changed the world forever—and won a Nobel Prize—when they uncovered the structure of DNA. In this memoir, Watson reveals the story behind their discovery.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Chapters 1–6, Chapters 7–14, Chapters 15–22, Chapters 23–Epilogue
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. hemoglobin
    a red protein in blood that transports oxygen
    Moreover, even though hemoglobin was not the center of the universe, Francis’ previous two years at the Cavendish certainly had not been dull.
  2. theory
    a belief that can guide behavior
    Yet there was still lacking a general theory to test new models as well as to confirm the finer details of the a-helix.
  3. manipulation
    touching with the hands or by use of mechanical means
    No effort, however, was required to see that my laboratory manipulations were less skillful than those of a Swiss chemist.
  4. essential
    basic and fundamental
    The a-helix had not been found by only staring at X-ray pictures; the essential trick, instead, was to ask which atoms like to sit next to each other.
  5. atom
    the smallest component of an element
    As organic chemists they were concerned with how the atoms were linked together, leaving to crystallographers the problem of the 3-D arrangement of the atoms.
  6. model
    a representation of something, often on a smaller scale
    In place of pencil and paper, the main working tools were a set of molecular models superficially resembling the toys of preschool children.
  7. configuration
    an arrangement of parts or elements
    Any other type of configuration would be much more complicated.
  8. aggregate
    a sum total of many heterogeneous things taken together
    If this was not the case, however, we could not see how the DNA molecules packed together to form the crystalline aggregates studied by Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.
  9. postulate
    maintain or assert
    So in building models we would postulate that the sugar-phosphate backbone was very regular, and the order of bases of necessity very irregular.
  10. adjacent
    having a common boundary or edge
    They thought that all the internucleotide links were phosphodiester bonds joining sugar carbon atom #y to sugar carbon atom #3 of the adjacent nucleotide.
  11. diffraction
    process by which light changes passing through a narrow slit
    Several days after the fiasco with Bragg, the crystallographer V. Vand sent Max a letter containing a theory for the diffraction of X rays by helical molecules.
  12. confine
    restrict or limit
    He had handed over to her all the good crystalline DNA used in his original work and had agreed to confine his studies to other DNA, which he afterward found did not crystallize.
  13. dense
    slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity
    On the other hand, Francis found it impossible to believe that Bragg could have been so dense as to have missed his oft-repeated idea, and he as much as told Bragg this.
  14. subsequently
    happening at a time later than another time
    Several weeks earlier Bragg had come into the lab greatly excited about an idea that came to him the previous evening, one that he and Perutz subsequently incorporated in their paper.
  15. vigor
    active strength of body or mind
    There he worked with great vigor, and, although many resented his nonstop conversation, there was a war to win and he was quite helpful in producing ingenious magnetic mines.
  16. ingenious
    showing inventiveness and skill
    There he worked with great vigor, and, although many resented his nonstop conversation, there was a war to win and he was quite helpful in producing ingenious magnetic mines.
  17. tedium
    dullness owing to length or slowness
    In a sense, this pursuit of the Ph.D. was a bore to a mind that worked too fast to be satisfied with the tedium involved in thesis research.
  18. dividend
    a bonus; something extra
    On the other hand, his decision had yielded an unforeseen dividend: in this moment of crisis, he could hardly be dismissed before he got his degree.
  19. intercede
    act between parties with a view to reconciling differences
    Max and John quickly came to Francis’ rescue and interceded with the Professor.
  20. astute
    marked by practical hardheaded intelligence
    Bill was the cleverest of the younger Cambridge X-ray people, and even though he was not involved in work on the large biological macromolecules, he always provided the most astute sounding board for Francis’ frequent ventures into theory.
  21. skepticism
    doubt about the truth of something
    This time, however, Bill did not voice skepticism, since independently he had found faults in Vand’s paper and had begun to wonder what the right answer was.
  22. pompous
    puffed up with vanity
    It meant acceptance by a more fashionable and amusing part of Cambridge and allowed him to dismiss the fact that he was not appreciated by a variety of dull and pompous dons.
  23. vitality
    an energetic style
    Here I first sensed the vitality of English intellectual life, so completely absent during my initial days in my Victorian room several hundred yards away on Jesus Green.
  24. hasten
    speed up the progress of; facilitate
    He had lived alone for several years until Odile, some five years his junior, came to Cambridge and hastened his revolt against the stodginess of the middle classes, which delight in unwicked amusements like sailing and tennis, habits particularly unsuited to the conversational life.
  25. predilection
    a predisposition in favor of something
    Odile did not mind this predilection, seeing that it went along with, and probably helped, his emancipation from the dullness of his Northampton upbringing.
  26. ghastly
    shockingly repellent; inspiring horror
    As soon as he entered he realized that it was a ghastly error, since not one of the young women enjoyed being tickled by the wet, scraggly hairs when he came within kissing distance.
  27. crux
    the most important point
    Six weeks of listening to Francis had made me realize that the crux of the matter was whether Rosy’s new X-ray pictures would lend any support for a helical DNA structure.
  28. reluctance
    a certain degree of unwillingness
    Maybe their reluctance to utter anything romantically optimistic, or even to mention models, was due to fear of a sharp retort from Rosy.
  29. condescension
    showing arrogance by patronizing those considered inferior
    After all, they didn’t know any biology, and so it was best to take their remarks as politeness, even condescension, toward someone opposed to the competitive pace of postwar physics.
  30. polemic
    a verbal or written attack, especially of a belief or dogma
    Not even the possession of University Chairs gave many the assurance to do clean science; some actually wasted their efforts on useless polemics about the origin of life or how we know that a scientific fact is really correct.
  31. ambiguity
    unclearness by virtue of having more than one meaning
    If Francis had gone along, no such ambiguity would have existed.
  32. axis
    the center around which something rotates
    It was all a question of the angle and radii at which the DNA strands twisted about the central axis.
  33. systematic
    characterized by order and planning
    About a year before that triumph, Bragg, Kendrew, and Perutz had published a systematic paper on the conformation of the polypeptide chain, an attack that missed the point.
  34. conformation
    a symmetrical arrangement of the parts of a thing
    About a year before that triumph, Bragg, Kendrew, and Perutz had published a systematic paper on the conformation of the polypeptide chain, an attack that missed the point.
  35. perpendicular
    intersecting at or forming right angles
    Rapid improvisation would be necessary since there was no
    A schematic view of a nucleotide, showing that the plane of the base is almost perpendicular to the plane in which most of the sugar atoms lie.
  36. tentative
    under terms not final or fully worked out or agreed upon
    Later he bidlt some very tentative models for DNA.
  37. fabricate
    put together out of artificial or natural components
    Much more difficulty came from the necessity to fabricate representations of the inorganic ions.
  38. inquisitive
    showing curiosity
    Occasionally John’s student Hugh Huxley would join us, but of late he was finding it difficult to enjoy Francis’ inquisitive lunchtime attacks.
  39. intuition
    instinctive knowing, without the use of rational processes
    At least with our level of chemical intuition, there was unlikely to be any single conformation much prettier than the rest.
  40. quantitative
    expressible as an amount that can be measured
    The next obvious step would be to check it with Rosy’s quantitative measurements.
  41. parameter
    any factor defining a system and determining its performance
    The model would certainly fit with the general locations of the X-ray reflections, for its essential helical parameters had been chosen to fit the seminar facts I had conveyed to Francis.
  42. periphery
    the outside boundary or surface of something
    This did not mean that we were necessarily wrong—with luck the extra water might be fudged into vacant regions on the periphery of our helix.
  43. hapless
    unfortunate and deserving pity
    Though Francis could not help dominating the lunchtime conversation, his mood was no longer that of a confident master lecturing hapless colonial children who until then had never experienced a first-rate intellect.
  44. unperturbed
    free from emotional agitation or nervous tension
    There was nothing to do but appear unperturbed as the news of the upset confirmed the fact that Francis might move faster if occasionally he would close his mouth.
  45. qualm
    uneasiness about the fitness of an action
    Bragg felt no qualms that this might impede science, since inquiries to Max and John had revealed nothing original in our approach.
Created on Wed Aug 24 11:03:39 EDT 2016 (updated Mon Sep 24 14:22:38 EDT 2018)

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