Francis Crick
Discoverer of the Genetic Code
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
Between 1953 and 1966, scientist Francis Crick led a revolution in biology by discovering, quite literally, the secret of life: the genetic code. Crick, who died in 2004 at the age of 88, will be remembered as one of the most influential scientists in history, but little is known about his life outside of the laboratory. Science writer Matt Ridley, author of the national bestseller Genome, presents the most complete, in-depth portrait of Crick available today.
Ridley’s comprehensive work follows Crick from his childhood in the English Midlands to a lackluster education and six years designing magnetic mines for the Royal Navy, to his leap into biology at the age of thirty-one and its astonishing consequences. In the process, Ridley illuminates the life and ideas of the man who forever changed our world and how we understand it.
Matt Ridley’s books have been shortlisted for six literary awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Genome. His book The Agile Gene was named best science book published in 2003 by The National Academies of Science. He is a visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. He lives in Newcastle, England.
“Matt Ridley’s Francis Crick perceptively and warmly recounts the extraordinary life of the 20th century’s most important biologist.” — James D. Watson
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Francis Crick (1916 2004) is a natural addition to the Eminent Lives series. Best known for his codiscovery of the structure of DNA alongside James Watson, Crick is a canonical figure in modern science; award-winning British science writer Ridley (The Agile Gene) is an expert and distinguished author of popular books on biological science. But one wishes the strictures of this series gave Ridley more space in which to work; the prose is crisp and forthright, but he barely has enough room to recount the basic contours of Crick's voracious scientific career, leaving the reader with but a few fleeting glimpses of the man's deeper character. Readers of Watson's The Double Helix who pick up this book looking for a similarly idiosyncratic portrait of a scientific life will be disappointed, but one might argue that this spare, straightforward volume is a more fitting tribute to a scientist who lived a relatively modest public life while striving to understand the basic workings of life and consciousness.
