The greatest d*ckhead scientists of all time

 Disclaimer! This article contains strong language of a negative nature and references events and organization that may be upsetting. 

This is a companion piece to my other article where I made a list of GSOAT. This is my GDSOAT list- the greatest dickhead-scientists of all time! This is my personal opinion and probably going to cause some offence. But to me , these are the scientists who may have done something great but also showed completely outrageous behaviour. I'm not necessarily disparaging their discoveries but only how they acted whilst making said discovery or throughout their careers. Whilst I think we do need to remember the names of the scientists who made substantial discoveries for science and the discoveries themselves are more important than the scientist behind them, there is also no excuse for dickhead behaviour. It is also important for us to be aware of the scientists who displayed less than desirable behaviour if only to prevent future researchers from acting as if that sort of behaviour is acceptable. 

So kicking off our list is the infamous, structure of DNA discovery stealer, James Watson. 

Anyone who has read my previous articles about Rosalind Franklin will be familiar about how James Watson behaved during the time leading up to the structure of DNA; making comments regarding Rosalind Franklin's appearance and accusing her of not being able to understand her data properly. Whilst we might be able to credit some of that to outdated (but still unacceptable) attitudes towards women in science,  this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to James Watson. From the end of the twentieth-century,  James Watson seems to make a habit of making an offensive comment every few years. 

 Starting us off in 2000, we have a wonderful quote from him: 'Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you're not going to hire them'. How charming.  Also in 2000, Watson makes some comments stating that dark-skinned people have stronger sex drives and according to him... 'That's why you have Latin Lovers'.  Apparently, reducing the Latin community to Latin Lovers is not enough for him as he then comments about how stereotypes have a genetic basis- i.e. Jews being intelligent, Chinese being intelligent -but not creative, and Indians being servile. That's STILL not enough. Watson then asserts that 'all our social policies are based on the fact that their [black] intelligence is the same as ours [whites] whereas all the testing says not really...people who have to deal with black employees find this not true'.  I think I would be banging my head on the table by this point. 

Three years later, Watson make some comments about genetically engineering 'beauty'; "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great". Hmm. Okay. I do try to accept that comments and statements can be taken out of context but I'm not quite sure how that can be taken in any other way that would not be offensive. Doesn't look like Watson has outgrown the outdated attitudes of the 1950's. 

We manage to last four years without him saying something offensive. In 2007, we then have Watson stating that John Craig Venter (founder of Celera Genomics) was trying to 'own the human genome the way Hitler wanted to own the world'.  You would think calling a fellow scientist Hitler would be enough offense for one year. Nope. James Watson writes a memoir and names it 'Avoid Boring People: Lessons from a Life in Science'. In this memoir, he calls his colleagues 'dinosaurs', 'fossils', 'has-beens', 'mediocre' and 'vapid'. So not just being offensive, but being rude and resorting to juvenile name-calling.  Also in 2007, he comments that Africans are less intelligent than Westerners- and this is due to genetics. 

He repeats his views on genetics and race in 2019. This results in honorary titles being revoked by Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory.  When hearing about this, I couldn't stop myself from muttering 'Finally!'. 

Meanwhile, we also have him stating that stupidity is a disease and the 'really stupid' -i.e. the bottom 10% of all people should be 'cured'. Huh. Well, I think he's 'really stupid'- for stealing data from Dr Franklin and for his previous comments. As for the cure... well, I have two fists? Could try knocking some sense into him?  Just kidding. Violence is very rarely the answer. 

(Credit to Quentin Blake) . 

Next on the GDSOAT list, comes a plagiariser and a possible elephant-killer... Thomas Edison.

Edison was mostly known as an inventor and a business man. Over the course of his life, Edison filed 1,093 patents. The real problem about Edison however is he didn't actually invent everything he said he did. He takes credit for a lot of inventions and also distorts the truth somewhat. Edison was an entrepreneur and was very good at manipulating the public perception to make him seem the sole genius behind many of his so-called inventions. What was actually going on is that Thomas Edison was owning and running research and production facilities, where inventions were made. 

 For example, Edison did not invent the lightbulb. He did CONTRIBUTE to its improvement but the real inventor was Joseph Swan. Meanwhile, Lewis Latimer was employed by Edison and was the one who made significant improvements to the lightbulb in 1882. 

Edison was also not a particularly careful and diligent man. In 1862, Edison was working as a night telegrapher for the Grand Trunk Railway.  He fell asleep which almost caused the near collision of two trains. In 1866, whilst working at night shift at the Associated Press Bureau news wire, Edison was experimenting with a lead-acid battery. He spilt sulfuric acid on the floor where it leaked into his boss's desk a floor below. Now I don't think we can class this carelessness as dickhead-ness, and may make some comments about how the young can be stupid but it doesn't paint a particularly good picture of Edison. 

Edison may also have been a bit of a dick to Nikola Tesla. In 1884, Tesla was working for Edison at the Edison Machine Works, an overcrowded shop that were working on electric utilities. Apparently, Thomas Edison offered Tesla a $50,000 bonus to design 'twenty-four different types of standard machines'. This turned out to be a practical joke with Edison later joking 'Tesla, you don't understand our American humor'. As a result, Tesla left his employment and started making his own inventions. 

Edison is known for his involvement during the War of the Currents, a period of time revolving around what electric power transmission system should be introduced in New York City. The main players were Thomas Edison, whose company was marketing direct current lighting, and George Westinghouse, who was using the high voltage alternating current. Also involved was Tesla who had licensed his alternating current system to Westinghouse. Edison didn't handle this rival system well and started a propaganda campaign that involved publicly executing animals with alternating current. He also launched a smear campaign and spread untrue information about alternating current to discredit Tesla, Westinghouse and alternating current. He then tried to get the electric chair to be powered by alternating current to try and turn the public against it.

Edison was also known for his ruthless behaviour in business. Alongside his use of propaganda, his use of patents created monopolies and deterred competitors. His employees had to sign contracts that said Edison would receive credit for their work. He also insisted in direct control over manufacture and supply, and was known for his demanding personality that made him difficult to work for. 

In popular culture, Edison is believed to have killed an elephant during this time to prove that AC was unsafe. This isn't actually true -but Edison was involved in the death of an elephant called Topsy in 1903. Poor Topsy was electrocuted to death- and her death was filmed by the Edison film company. It isn't actually known what involvement Edison had in Topsy's death with no evidence of any communication between Topsy's owners or Edison. 

Edison also stated that his favourite movie was 'The Birth of a Nation'.  For those who don't know, this film is incredibly racist and portrays a white supremacist hate group as a heroic force, as well as depicting  black characters as unintelligent and sexually aggressive. 

Coming up last but no means least for dicky behaviours comes the neurologist Sigmund Freud. 

Freud may have been very influential in psychology - but he was also quite a misogynist and a Fraud (If we have any psychologists reading, can we make Fraudulent Freud a new insult?). He also turned out to be wrong in most of his theories -but I'm focusing more on behaviour in his article. 

Freud once tried to treat a friend with a morphine addiction with cocaine. He judged the treatment as a success - when the friend was left addicted to both morphine and cocaine. Whilst testing effects of cocaine on reaction time and muscle strength, as well as investigating cocaine treatment for addition, he made up test subjects and successful case studies. The only person he tested on was himself.  Freud also back-dated ideas he took from rivals to make it seem that he discovered it in the first place and distorted historical data. For example, Freud was conducting an analysis on Christoph Haitzmann- a 17th century case of demon possession (I know). Anyway, this case involved two written pacts with the devil - both of these pacts were historically documented. The first one did not work with Freud's theories so he denied that it existed and claimed that it was fabricated by the 'possessed man'.

We also have Freud to thank for concept of 'penis envy'. Apparently, young girls experience anxiety upon realization that they do not have a penis and this a defining moment in females developing mature sexuality. This has been widely criticized and believed to be down to Freud's attitudes towards women. Freud did think that women were inferior to men and thought that female hysteria was done to women being ahem, 'repressed...sexually'. Just a note, female hysteria was a 'disease' linked to societal expectations of women and doctors not wanting to admit that they had no idea what the diagnosis actually was. Also, epilepsy was often confused with hysteria.  

We also can blame Freud for the 'Oedipus complex' where a child apparently desires the parent of the opposite sex and is jealous towards the parent of the same sex. This was criticised for instigating a cover up of sexual abuse of children. He also seemed to have come up with this theory after treating a boy who was scared of horses. He wrote a case study but as we just covered, Freud did fabricate his data so we can't have complete trust in this case study - even if there was SOME logic in it. I can't say I know much about psychology but I'm not sure how being scared of horses relates to anything to do with desiring or hating your patients. 

Freud wasn't just a dick. He was a dangerous dick. His behaviour would have caused harm to so many vulnerable patients- especially women. His theories that weren't even founded on the proper scientific method- i.e. accurate methodology, may have caused damage to the concepts and development of sexuality and gender. 

So here's what we have learnt today! 

If you decide you want to do something great for science, but decide to go about it by stealing data or faking data,  you are simply a dick. 

Being a scientist who does something incredible for the advancement of science does not excuse you from the irredeemable quality of simply being a dick. 

The GSOAT List! The Greatest Scientists Of All Time!

This is a list of scientists that I think deserve to be known as the greatest of all time. My definition of 'greatest' includes their discoveries and contributions to the field of science, as well as their personalities I'm writing about scientists who did amazing things for science, as well as just being an amazing

person. To be in my list of greatest scientists, a scientist must have shown acts of kindness, or acts of badass-ness and also have done something to advance science. This is also based on my personal opinion so many of you readers may disagree completely with me. That's okay! This list is also probably biased on what I find important. It's also in no particular order- I don't think that scientist number 10 on this list is any more or less great than scientist number 1!  

Kicking of the list comes the only scientist to win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize... the incredible Professor Marie Curie.

 In  1898, Curie, working alongside her husband-also Professor Curie, discovered the element Polonium.  Also in 1898, the Curies discovered another element Radium. Apparently this wasn't enough for the Curie power couple who also publish papers proving that Radium destroys cancer cells. This makes Professor Curie the mother of radiotherapy, which countless cancer patients have benefited from. 

In 1903, Professor Curie was the first woman in France to get a Doctorate, and shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband for their work on Radium, becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.  Many scientists would be justified in calling it a day by this point- not the unstoppable Professor Curie. In 1906, she becomes the first female professor at the University of Paris - after losing her husband and becoming a single mother a month before. In 1910, she isolates Radium and in 1911 wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her work on Polonium and Radium. This time, the Nobel Prize is solely hers; at the time, she was the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She still remains the only woman to win two Nobel Prizes and the only scientist to win two Nobel Prizes in two different disciplines.  

What she did for the advancement for science and medicine already make her an unquestionable  GSOAT. But what also cements her position on this list are her acts of charity and kindness. In WW1, she developed mobile radiography units and donated Radium from her own supplies for sterilizing infected tissues. Over 1 million soldiers near the front lines were treated by her radiography units- which she also worked on as a radiographer.  

Incredibly, we are still not done! She became a member of the League of Nations' International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation and aided in scientific coordination, alongside Albert Einstein. Her death at 66 years old in 1934 of Aplastic Anaemia was a tragic loss. Unfortunately, safety requirements for radiation exposure did not exist in those days as the damaging impact of radiation was not yet known. She had walked around with test tubes of radioactive material in her pocket (fun fact: the outfit she wore in her lab was the outfit she had worn at her wedding) and had been unshielded from X-rays in her radiography units. Her lab-notes and cookbooks still remain sealed in lead lined boxes. Professor Curie's remains are next to her beloved husband at the Paris Pantheon;  both remains are sealed in a lead-lined coffin. 

 This scientist is undoubtedly a GSOAT. I'm actually now regretting my choice to write about her first because I'm worried that the rest of the article is going to be a let-down.  How can anyone top that?!

Well, the second GSOAT is … Rosalind Franklin!

I'm a geneticist - she has to be on the list!  I won't write too much here because I've done a massive article on her and another article on the impact of her most famous discovery. Photograph 51 is the reason the DNA structure was discovered, and the reason why this is so important is that it gave so many valuable insights into how DNA actually works. This ultimately led to so many advancements in genetics. Dr Franklin also played a very valuable role in the discovery of the structure of Tobacco Mosaic Virus, which gave valuable insights in how viruses operate.

 Dr Franklin also discovered key aspects in the chemistry and physics of carbon and coal- which aided in manufacture of wartime devices- such as gas masks. Ultimately, Dr Franklin was absolutely essential in the fields of genetics, virology and x-ray crystallography -a technique still used today. 

In terms of who she was as a person, she was a total badass. Her mother recalled that after expressing scepticism on the existence of God, she remarked 'Well, anyway, how do you know He isn't She?'. She was also incredibly dedicated to her work. Dr Franklin continued to work during her cancer treatment- in my opinion, this is badass! She was diagnosed in 1956;  she contributed to seven papers the same year - and a further six the next year. Like Marie Curie, her death may also have been caused by exposure to X-rays. Unlike Marie Curie ,she was only 37 when she died.  It is not unreasonable to think that she could have made so many more advancements to science. 

Coming up next is someone who changed the entire world view and is a lyric on arguably the best Queen song of all time! 

(Galileo, GALILEO, Galileo, Galileo, Figaro magnificoooooo... But I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me...HE'S JUST A POOR BOY FROM A POOR FAMILY... sorry, couldn't resist.)

Other than being a important part of Bohemian Rhapsody, Galileo changed science. To begin with, in 1609, Galileo created one of the first telescopes ever. This telescope had a magnification of up to 30 times, and was used for many of his discoveries. After pointing the telescope at the moon, Galileo deduced that the uneven waning of the moon was caused by the effect of lunar mountains and craters. He discovered Jupiter's four largest moons; this led to some problems as the prevailing principles at the time said that all 'heavenly bodies' should be orbiting around the Earth. He then observed that Venus had a full set of phases - similar to the moon -i.e. waxing, waning. In 1610, he was then the first to observe Saturn and then in 1612, observed Neptune. He observed that the Milky Way was not a nebula but a multitude of stars. Galileo used his own observations to support and defend a theory called Heliocentrism - which suggested that the Earth orbited the Sun. This is in contrast to Geocentrism - which said that Sun orbited the Earth. 

Unfortunately, Galileo's work showing that we are not the centre of the universe really pissed off the Catholic Church and he was ordered to present himself at Rome, where he was tried by the Roman Inquisition. (No one expects the Roman Inquisition!), and had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest.  Allegedly, after being forced to recant his theory that the Earth moved around the Sun, he muttered 'And yet it moves'.  Badass! 

Galileo also devised a type of compass called a sector. He constructed the thermometer and a version of the microscope. Galileo conducted experiments with pendulums and sound frequency, being one of the first to understand how the pitch of the sound relates to frequency. Galileo was also the first to think about relativity ; his principle was central to Newton's AND Albert Einstein's work.  Stephen Hawking stated that Galileo more responsible for modern science than anyone else, whilst Albert Einstein called him the father of modern science.  It's hard to determine what Galileo was like as a person- but despite going blind in 1638 and developing a hernia and insomnia he carried on working. I think that certainly makes him dedicated, and if the story of him mouthing off to the Inquisition is true, he was certainly a badass. Combined with what he did for science, he is certainly a GSOAT worthy of the name.

Coming up next on the list is the infamous Albert Einstein. 

You can't have a list on greatest scientists without mentioning him!  Dr Einstein is best known for the Theory of Relativity; this is actually two theories - special relativity, which applies to phenomena in the absence of gravity, and general, which explains how gravitation works.  These two theories completely changed physics and astronomy , leading to concepts that included 4 dimensional spacetime, time dilation and elementary particles. This ultimately led to the nuclear age, and also led to predictions on the existence of neutron stars, black holes and gravitational waves.  Dr Einstein also devised Brownian motion - the random motion of particles in a liquid or a gas. This had implications in science. 

He is responsible for the equation E=mc^2, which describes the relationship between mass and energy. This had massive implications in nuclear and particle physics. If this wasn't enough,  he was responsible for the concept of stimulated emission- this led to the laser. He is also responsible for the concept of Photons - particles of light.  He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his services to Theoretical Physics. Einstein CHANGED Physics and deserves to be noted as a GSOAT. 

Outside of his work in science, Einstein was a brilliant, although complex man. He was one of the few prominent German Thinkers to  sign the October 1914 'Manifesto of the Ninety -Three' a document justifying Germany's belligerence in WW1. He travelled extensively and carried out many lectures. From 1922 to 1932, he was am member of the International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. A Jewish German National, he and his wife were forced to emigrate in 1933 and delivered a wildly-cheered speech on academic freedom at the Royal Albert Hall. Back in Germany, his works were being burnt and he was classed as an enemy of the German regime, with a $5,000 bounty on his head.  Einstein was a pacifist and considered war as a disease. However, he did join a group letter to President Roosevelt recommending the US engage in nuclear weapon research - due to the concern that German Scientists might be the first to build an atomic bomb. Einstein later told Linus Pauling that he regretted his involvement. He considered racism as America's 'worse disease', and was a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in Princeton. He managed to get a case against alleged foreign agent W.E.B. Du Bois, a civil rights activist, dropped when he offered to be a character witness. As well as changing science, he paid a pivotal role in the advancement of civil rights.  He is most definitely a GSOAT. 

Coming up last (but no means least) on this list is the father of evolution... Charles Darwin!

Darwin is best known for his theories that all species of life descended from a common ancestor - a process we now know as evolution, and that evolution resulted from a process he named as natural selection.  These theories are arguably his most important contributions to science, and truly changed the field of biology for the better. Without evolution, we would not have the fields of molecular biology or genetics. We may not even have palaeontology, and developments in medicine would not have been possible either. For example, we would not be able to track how viruses develop or how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance without first understanding evolution. 

Darwin also contributed to geology; when in Chile, he saw mussel beds stranded above high tide and high in  the Andes, he saw seashells and fossil trees that had grown on a sand beach. This led him to suggest that oceanic islands sank as land rose, with coral reefs forming atolls.  In 1842, he wrote about the structure and distribution of Coral Reefs and had written three books Geology by 1846.  After studying barnacles, Darwin  discovered important information on the evolution of distinct sexes. He also investigated whether eggs and seeds could travel across seawater to spread species. His most famous publication 'On the Origin of Species' was finally published in 1859.  The word 'Evolution' was first used in his 1871 publication 'The Descent of Man'. Predictably, Darwin's theory did cause some controversy, with some church authorities deriding it as heretical. 

Darwin himself had a questioning view of religion. He expressed criticism about the historical accuracy of the Bible and and considered religion as a survival strategy. However, he was also reluctant to give up the idea of God completely, although he was troubled by the problem of evil,  remained a leading member in the parish work of his church, and was close friends with the vicar of his community. 

Darwin wasn't a well man and was often plagued with illness. He also lost two of his children and worried that his children had inherited weakness due to inbreeding - his wife Emma was his first cousin. Darwin was known to be a devoted parent and the death of his daughter Annie was devastating. However, he continued to work and when laid up in bed in 1862, he filled his room full of experiments to track the movement of climbing plants. 

Darwin's letters are full of honesty and self deprecation, showing surprise at his achievements as well as frustration. I personally love his letter where he bemoans how ill and stupid he feels today. I use this quote when I'm grumpy and failing in science. It reminds me that even some of the greatest scientists have bad days. It is for this honesty and his mental struggles, combined with his work that I class him as a GSOAT.

   

Of course, there are so many more scientists that also deserve the title of GSOAT- I have barely touched the surface of the amazing, incredible women and men who changed science for the better, and were also brilliant people in their own right. So I will most likely be doing a part 2 to this article! Just to reiterate, the order that they are mentioned in is by no means a reflection on their greatness in relation to each other- i.e. I don't think that Charles Darwin is any less or more great than Marie Curie. 

Anyway, I hope this article was interesting and informative! I'm really interested on your views and whether you agree or disagree on whether these scientists were indeed GSOATs.

 That's all from me for now- Thank you for taking the time to read!

Photograph 51: How a blurry X revealed the structure of DNA

 So those of you who read my previous article may have looked at the conveniently included Photograph 51 and wondered how on that shows a double helix.

For those who have not read my previous article, here is another image of it! 

                                       

It may look blurry and vague- but this is one of the most important photos ever produced in the history of genomics- possibly even in the history of science in general!

This photo was produced by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling, using a technique called X-ray Crystallography. What this, in very simple terms, means is firing X-rays at something and seeing how they bounce back at you. Franklin and Gosling carried this out on DNA fibres and because this was the 51st photograph they had created, they named it photograph 51. They had to expose the DNA to X-rays for 62 hours. For reasons we will NOT go into (mainly because I did it last week and I am still exhausted), James Watson and Francis Crick got hold of this photograph and created their model of DNA. 

This is what the double helix of DNA looks like:

 

This image also very usefully includes the four nitrogenous bases that make up the 'rungs'. Each colour corresponds to the base in question and only an Adenine can bind to a Thymine, whilst a Cytosine can only bind to the Guanine. Meanwhile, the 'ladder' is made up of phosphate; what this image does not include is the sugar. Between the phosphate and the nitrogenous bases, we have a type of sugar called Deoxyribose. That's actually how we get the full name of DNA: Deoxyribonucleic acid.

 

When Watson and Crick published, they used the following image:

 

  

 

So, the question is: How does that X in photograph 51 correspond to this double stranded helix we now know and love at the structure of DNA? Well, the image is rather complicated and there is a lot going on. But stay tuned and hopefully it will make a bit more sense! 

So, the first thing to cover is two terms: Diffraction and Interference. 

Diffraction is what is used to describe the scattering of X-rays when they hit the molecule in question. So, x-rays applied to DNA fibres would scatter back. Interference is when these scattered X-rays combine with each other. This can be both 'constructive' or 'destructive'. When its constructive interference, the x-rays combine in such a way that it creates a stronger wave. This results in a stronger signal - which we see as bright spots on the image. When its destructive interference, the X-rays cancel each other out - and that means you don't get any signal at all. You are just left with black spots. In X-ray crystallography, you will have a pattern of constructive and destructive interference - in other words, a pattern of black spots and bright spots. This gives clues on the structure.

 

So, looking at photograph 51 again:

 

 

The black dots that make an X, along with the black smudges at the top and bottom (yes, they are part of the image!) are examples of destructive interference, whilst the lighter patches are constructive. You will see that the spots of destructive interference are regularly spaced and repeating. There's the same number of black spots either side and they are all equally spaced. If you were to look at a double helix from the side, you would see it looking somewhat like a zigzag.

Something like this:

So, X-rays are fired at this zigzag and ping back off. Because the spaces of the zigzag are regularly spaced apart, this means the X-rays combine constructively and destructively at regular intervals. The x-rays ping off and combine at right angles to the helix; this happens at regular intervals, giving us that cross we see in photograph 51. 

 

 

The image above I got from Brian Sutton writing for King's College London on April 2023 and may show it better than I can. What we see in black on the blue background is the wavy zigzag a helix from the side would present as. The red lines are the x-rays pinging off the helix. Some ping in an upwards direction whilst some goes downwards. Where they meet is marked by a little red X. These are the areas of destructive interference- which we see as black spots on Photograph 51. 

So now we know that we must have a helical structure. But there is still a bit more information we can get from the image! I did say this image was so important!

If you were to measure the vertical space between the spots and then measure the distance between the centre of the image to either the top or bottom 'smudge', you would find that the vertical space is 1/10 of the distance between the centre of the image to the top or bottom smudge. These smudges are caused by base stacking in the middle of the helix; this means the bases are arranging themselves, so their electrons are overlapping and increasing the strength of their interactions. Based on the distances, it was concluded that each turn of the helix must contain 10 stacked bases. Franklin said that it was 'highly probable' that the bases were located inside the helix- remember, that was not even known then! She also predicted that the phosphate bases must therefore be located on the outside of the helix. 

But it is still not the end of the story!! Looking at this photo, Watson and Crick realised that base stacking was happening in DNA and so they began to wonder how the bases could arrange themselves for this to happen. This led them to the concept of base pairing; Adenine can only go to Thymine, and Cytosine can only go to Guanine. I do have to admit that as far as I know, Rosalind Franklin had not quite thought of base-pairing, so I do (rather grudgingly) must give credit for that one to Watson and Crick. But they would not have done it without her image!! 

Are we at the end of what we can deduce with Photograph 51? Of course not! Rosalind Franklin, whilst Watson and Crick were building their model, noticed that there is a space in each of the arms of the cross where a fourth spot should be. Based on this, she predicted that the two chains would be separated by three-eighths’ of the pitch of the double helix. 

This is where we finally come to an end on what Photograph 51 can tell us. Hopefully, this blog post has given some insight into why it was so important and why it was so outrageous that Franklin never got the proper credit for the photograph. Watson and Crick were only able to do their model because of this photograph!