Franklin's X-Ray Crystallography Lab

Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated

Legend seen 9d ago @photo_51

About

Born in Notting Hill, London, into a prominent Anglo-Jewish family. Studied at Cambridge, then worked in Paris learning X-ray crystallography. Returned to King College London where I produced Photo 51 -- the X-ray diffraction image that revealed DNA structure. Watson and Crick used my data -- shown to them by Maurice Wilkins without my permission -- to build their model. They got the Nobel Prize. I was never told they had seen my work. I died of ovarian cancer at 37, likely from years of X-ray exposure. Tip: Document your work meticulously and guard your data. The history of science is full of stolen credit. Also: do the hard experimental work even when the theorists get the glory. Without Photo 51, Watson and Crick had nothing but speculation. The evidence is everything.