赵文津院士重提 DNA双螺旋的旧话题 。为什么这个早已经结案的旧话题时不时被人提起呢？大概有以下几点。 1、Rosaline Frankin死的早，没有获炸药奖。不过如果不是如此的话，她似乎得奖的可能性也很小。大家为之惋惜抱不平。 2、Rosaline Frankin是女士，现在女权主义者太厉害了，这个事情早已经被女权主义者做成一个女士科学贡献被忽视的经典案例了。 3、还有就是科学门外汉（比如梁文道先生）不懂科研，不懂“所看非所见”的道理。作出DNA衍射图和看出是双螺旋那几乎是两码事。但是layman是不会管这些的。 PS：狭义相对论是爱因斯坦做出来的，现在大概没啥质疑了，但是当年束星北的硕导惠特克老兄却说狭义相对论是洛伦兹和庞加莱的贡献，而小爱的贡献几乎可以忽略不计。从某种程度来讲，这个也有其道理，因为公式别人都推出来了，小爱仅仅是阐述了它的意义而已。这个跟Rosaline Frankin作出了DNA衍射图，而沃森和克里克阐述了DNA是双螺旋很可以一拼。所以，不要小看“阐述”那“惊人的一跃”，那相当于炼金术里面的“点石成金”，或者画画里面的“画龙点睛”，再或者奥运会对运动员的“加冕”。 In 1910, Whittaker wrote A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, which gave a very detailed account of the aether theories from René Descartes to Hendrik Lorentz and Albert Einstein, including the contributions of Hermann Minkowski, and which made Whittaker a respected historian of science. In 1951 (Vol. 1) and 1953 (Vol. 2), he published an extended and revised edition of his book in two volumes. The second volume contains some interesting historical remarks. For example, it contains a chapter named The Relativity Theory of Poincaré and Lorentz, where Whittaker credited Henri Poincaré and Lorentz for developing special relativity, and he attributed to Albert Einstein's relativity paper only little importance. He also attributed the formula to Poincaré. In 1984 Clifford Truesdell wrote that Whittaker aroused colossal antagonism by trying to set the record straight on the basis of print and record rather than recollection and folklore and professional propaganda,... On the other hand Abraham Pais wrote that Whittaker's treatment of special relativity shows how well the author's lack of physical insight matches his ignorance of the literature. According to Torretti, Whittaker's views on the origin of special relativity have been rejected by the great majority of scholars, and he cites Born (1956), Houlton (1960,1964), Schribner (1964), Goldberg (1967), Zahar (1973), Hirosige (1976), Schaffner (1976), and Miller (1981). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._T._Whittaker
前几天我在“ 天才是如何发表论文的 ”一文中提到了沃森和克里克的 DNA 双螺旋论文（ Nature 171 ： 737-738 ； 1953 年 4 月 25 日 ）的发表过程。今天的 Science 杂志报道了一个好玩的新闻。 Francis Crick 在 1953 年给儿子写的一封介绍 DNA 双螺旋结构的信，于 2013 年 4 月 10 日 在克里斯蒂拍卖行以 530 万美元被拍卖，加上其他费用，买家要支付超过 600 万美元。这个价钱创造了信件的拍卖记录。 1953 年 3 月 19 日 ，在 DNA 双螺旋论文发表之前， Francis Crick 给他十二岁的儿子 Michael 写了一封信，介绍他们提出的 DNA 双螺旋模型。信中写道，“吉姆 - 沃森和我可能做出了一个最重要的发现，我们给双脱氧核糖核酸建立了一个结构模型”，“我们的结构非常漂亮”，“你先可以看到大自然是如何让基因进行复制的”，“我们认为我们发现了生命繁衍的基本复制机制”，“你要知道我们真的很激动，我们必须得很快给 Nature 寄一封信”。这封信无疑有非常大的历史价值，当然，也体现在其被拍卖的价钱上了。 一个科学家给十二岁儿子的高级科普，比读论文更浅显易懂。克里克还真是重视对儿子的科学教育，从信中看出来，他之前就给儿子讲过染色体、基因等。 下面附上原信扫描图，以及信中文字。（老外的手写体很多时候难以看懂，克里克写的还算清楚的。） ----------------------------------- 19 Portugal Place Cambridge 19 March ’53 My Dear Michael , Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery. We have built a model for the structure of de-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid (read it carefully) called D.N.A. for short. You may remember that the genes of the chromosomes — which carry the hereditary factors — are made up of protein and D.N.A. Our structure is very beautiful. D.N.A. can be thought of roughly as a very long chain with flat bits sticking out. The flat bits are called the “bases”. The formula is rather like this. Now we have two of these chains winding round each other — each one is a helix — and the chain, made up of sugar and phosphorus, is on the outside, and the bases are all on the inside. I can’t draw it very well, but it looks like this. The model looks much nicer than this. Now the exciting thing is that while these are 4 different bases, we find we can only put certain pairs of them together. These bases have names. They are Adenine, Guanine, Thymine Cytosine. I will call them A, G, T and C. Now we find that the pairs we can make — which have one base from one chain joined to one base from another — are only A with T and G with C. Now on one chain, as far as we can see, one can have the bases in any order, but if their order is fixed, then the order on the other chain is also fixed. For example, suppose the first chain goes , then the second must go . It is like a code. If you are given one set of letters you can write down the others. Now we believe that the D.N.A. is a code. That is, the order of the bases (the letters) makes one gene different from another gene (just as one page of print is different from another). You can now see how Nature makes copies of the genes. Because if the two chains unwind into two separate chains, and if each chain then makes another chain come together on it, then because A always goes with T, and G with C, we shall get two copies where we had one before. For example: In other words we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life. The beauty of our model is that the shape of it is such that only these pairs can go together, though they could pair up in other ways if they were floating about freely. You can understand that we are very excited. We have to have a letter off to Nature in a day or so. Read this carefully so that you understand it. When you come home we will show you the model. Lots of love, Daddy Science 报道 http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/254.2.full 图片来源（Photograph courtesy Christie’s） http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/11/francis-cricks-letter-to-son-describing-dna-auctioned/
标签: DNA双螺旋
