ABSTRACT
Francis Crick grew up in a household of business and religion. Crick chose University College London (UCL) for his university education, mainly because, in contrast to Oxbridge, it was totally devoid of any religious associations. When Crick began studying biology in 1947, he was one of several physical scientists who ventured into biological research. Crick was interested in two fundamental problems: how molecules make the transition from the nonliving to the living and how the brain makes a conscious mind. In 1951 and 1952, together with William Cochran and Vladimir Vand, Crick assisted in the development of a mathematical theory of X-ray diffraction by a helical molecule. When James D. Watson came to Cambridge, Crick was a 35-year-old graduate student and Watson was a 23-year-old PhD. Using experimental data collected by Rosalind Franklin, who worked in the laboratory of Maurice Wilkins, Watson and Crick deduced, in March 1953, the double helix structure of DNA.
