01682nam a22001817a 450000500170000000800410001702000180005804000070007608200140008310000160009724500300011326000330014330000280017636500540020452012070025865000210146565000140148620260304095150.0260304b        |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  a9781541602885  cAL  a925bCOBC  aMathew Cobb  aCrickb: a mind in motion  aNew York bBasic Booksc2025  aviii,595p.bHBc24x16cm  2GeneralaIN-67611b₹2659.96c₹d₹2659.96e-  a major new biography of Francis Crick, codiscoverer of the structure of DNA, pioneering neuroscientist, and twentieth-century genius 
What are the moments that make a life? In Francis Crick’s, the decisive moment came in 1951, when he first met James Watson. Their ensuing discovery of the structure of DNA made Crick world-famous. But neither that chance meeting nor that discovery made Crick who he was. 
As Matthew Cobb shows in Crick, it is another chance encounter, with a line from the writing of Beat poet Michael McClure, that reveals Crick’s character: “THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE,” it shouted. Crick, having read it, would keep it with him for the rest of his life, a token of his desire to solve the riddles of existence. John Keats once accused scientists of merely wanting to “unweave a rainbow,” but it was an irrepressible, Romantic urge to wonder that defined Crick, as much as a desire to find the basis of life in DNA and the workings of our minds.  
For the first time ever, Cobb presents the full portrait of Crick, a scientist and a man: his triumphs and failings, insights and oversights. Crick set out to find the powerful knowledge. Almost miraculously, he did.   aSwinging Sixties  aInterlude