In The Double Helix, a reader can find James D. Watson's first hand accounts of the competitive race in science that led to the discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule. The DNA research Watson and his colleagues took part in demanded knowledge in many areas of expertise, but the most important area was that of X-ray analysis. By creating photographic two dimensional pictures of the three dimensional DNA molecule, Watson and his team …showed first 75 words of 1108 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1108 total…Once the team could tell the structure was a double helix, it was easy to put together the rest of the puzzle since they already had the basic three dimensional blue print of their project. Watson and Crick owe much of their acclaim to Rosalind Franklin and her X-ray techniques. Without the images developed through X-ray crystallography, Watson and Crick would never have been able to unravel the mystery of the structure of DNA.sd