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Videos
The DNA Story - 1973
 Francis Crick talks about Erwin Chargaff
Author: Francis Crick
Length: 0:54
 Watch using MPG Size: 5.2MB
Transcript:
Crick: I wasn't aware of Chargaff's rules when he said them, but the effect on me was quite electric because I realized immediately
that if you had this sort of scheme that John Griffiths was proposing, of adenine being paired with thymine, and guanine being
paired with cytosine, then you should get Chargaff's rules. I was very excited, but I didn't actually tell Chargaff because
it was something I was doing with John Griffiths. There was a sort of musical comedy effect where I forgot what the bases
were and I had to go to the library to check, and I went back to John Griffiths to find out which places he said. Low and
behold, it turned out that John Griffith's ideas fitted in with Chargaff's rules! This was very exciting, and we thought 'ah
ha!' and we realized - I mean what anyone who is familiar with the history of science ought to realize - that when you have
one-to-one ratios, it means things go to together. And how on Earth no one pointed out this simple fact in those years, I
don't know.
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