Big controversy on Franklin. She died of Cancer from the leaking X-ray Diffie machine she ran. She was very jealous of her data, and was reticent about allowing it out, but Wilkins and Bragg held sway, pushing the chick out of the way. Crick and Watson did not know how to interpret the X-Ray 'pix', which are hard three dimensionally. Now it is done by computer. Then it took days of work. It was Franklin who told them that the crucifix figures, sort of like Bertrand lens interference thingies, suggested a helix, but she wanted to make more tests to confirm that. W&C worked on the problem for a few months with Franklin, projecting structures until co-helical coils fit. They then tried building a model to see if the chemistry worked phosphate bond-wise. This leap of faith was lucky but is amazingly is still theoretical and not proven. There are competing theories of structure to this day!
There is no doubt that W&C were/are smart guys. Pauling was the better problem solver overall, and made them look like pikers career wise, but Pauling did not have the data to make a picture of that blueprint molecule. Pauling's foundation of science for chemists is like a car manual of the atom and its bonds. Without him we would flailing around like greek Atomists talking about phlogiston and little hard bits.
As a biochemist Pauling was not bad. He and Roger Williams really did a lot of work on the body's chemical systems. We are finding out more day by day. A Mistake would be to think that doctors in white lab coats have it all figured out. We are merely at the cusp of understanding the most complex chemical plant/reactor every built, the human body. It would be hubris to say it is a done deal, as we are arm waving mightily when we presume to extrapolate what diets and drugs do to make the engine work well over time. Conservatism befits us well here.
Mosely had the most promise as he had the atomic whole energy/structure thing figured about according to Planck, Heisenberg and Dirac, and it is his equations that allowed science to reliably predict unstable atoms that would have breakdown to energy probabilities.
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