The Beauty of 36 Degrees

Don’t tell me that science can’t be moving, and beautiful. Don’t tell me that truly understanding something is any less inspiring than marvelling ignorantly at its prettiness, never mind any less than the wishful myths that humans use as security blankets against the darkness of not knowing.

Francis Crick died two days ago, not so very far from here. Thanks to BoingBoing, here’s the first paper Crick and Watson wrote, describing the structure of DNA. It’s a thing of great science, and also of great beauty, and those two things are entirely consistent. Go on, go read it. It won’t take you long.

The first thing that’s truly shocking about the paper is how short it is. But then, this was a time in which science was racing to DNA as technology would rush to space a decade later. It was expedient to get the word out quickly, and to the loudest amplifier, which then was Nature. There was considerable prestige to be had from being first. But it’s also short because it doesn’t have to be long to do its job. The complicated ramifications of this seed of knowledge are still being worked out, but the seed itself is beautifully simple, in the manner that scientists and technologists and logicians are fond of calling elegant. It’s also true.

The clarity and lack of self-absorbtion of Crick and Watson’s text is a model of how to present scientific discovery. Here’s the first short paragraph:

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.

In retrospect, that sounds like ironic understatement, but I’m sure that wasn’t intended. It’s just a clear statement first of all of purpose, and then of potential import. A word too about the small diagram in the paper, which is also a model of clarity and beauty.

If DNA was a puzzle-box, then this diagram was the key – along with the angles and pair-bonding specifications. The structure itself is given dramatic presence in Mick Jackson’s film of Crick and Watson’s discovery, Life Story. The model they create in the lab is endowed with a Spielbergian sense of wonder. It’s as lovingly photographed as the Mothership in Close Encounters. Except this time it’s real.

No apologies, but this unassuming line from the paper strikes me as deeply, deeply affecting:

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

In other words: we think we’ve found the mechanism for heredity, and therefore life itself. It’s ingenious – in the way that nature constantly is – but it’s not miraculous. Miraculous implies satisfaction with not knowing, and no-one should be satisfied with that.