Matthew Cobb

And this evidence was in a semi-public report that Perutz had been given in December.

And which, in fact, one of the things I discovered in writing this book, Franklin had kind of invited Crick to find out about.

Because in January, she was giving a farewell talk.

January 53, and she, through a friend, she sent a message to Crick saying, you're welcome to come to this lecture, but it's not going to be very, not going to be much X-ray crystallographic detail.

And Max, Max Perutz, Crick's boss, knows all about it, so you may not think it's worth coming.

So this isn't a smoking gun, but it strongly suggests that Franklin was saying, okay, if you want to work on this, this is okay.

If you want to know more, ask Max.

So the simple answer is nothing gave Watson and Crick the double helix.

It was a lot of luck.

A lot of luck and trying anything and seeing if it would work and fiddling about for five, six weeks and...

then they were just incredibly lucky.

I think that's the real answer.

Is that okay?

It was a bit long.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, there's that XKCD cartoon of the guy at his computer and his wife says, come to bed.

And he says, I can't.

Someone is wrong on the internet.

Well, that's me, right?

Yeah, well, I mean...