CrickCrick

"What are the moments that make a life? In Francis Crick's, the decisive moment came in 1951, when he first met James Watson. Their ensuing discovery of the structure of DNA made Crick world-famous. But neither that chance meeting nor that discovery made Crick who he was. As Matthew Cobb shows in Crick, it is another chance encounter, with a line from the writing of Beat poet Michael McClure, that reveals Crick's character: 'THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE,' it shouted. Crick, having read it, would keep it with him for the rest of his life, a token of his desire to solve the riddles of existence. John Keats once accused scientists of merely wanting to 'unweave the rainbow,' but it was an irrepressible, Romantic urge to wonder that defined Crick, as much as a desire to find out the basis of life in DNA and the workings of our minds. For the first time ever, Cobb presents the full portrait of Crick, a scientist and a man: his triumphs and failings, insights and oversights. Crick set out to find the powerful knowledge. Almost miraculously, he did."--Dust jacket flap.