Chapter 3 Summary

Maurice Wilkins first excited the author about using X-rays to study DNA. The author recounts his lukewarm relationship with chemistry until first meeting Maurice. Trained as a biologist, Watson avoided chemistry through his graduate work and was sent on a postgraduate fellowship to study biochemistry with Herman Kalckar in Copenhagen. However, Watson was interested in genetics and had been working with phages, viruses which some scientists suspected were naked genetic material, while Herman was uninterested in genetics and difficult to understand. Watson continued phage work with a Copenhagen scientist, which was not strictly according to the terms of his fellowship. Watson's conscious was somewhat assuaged, when Herman revealed that he was going through a divorce, and was in no state to teach the student biochemistry. When Herman traveled to Naples for two months, though, Watson accompanied him with the permission of his fellowship...