When and Where Was Photo 51 taken?
The photo was taken in May 1952 by Rosalind Franklin and her PhD student Raymond Gosling in the basement underneath the chemistry What Is X-Ray Crystallography?
It’s a long-established method of determining the structure of molecules by bombarding them with X-rays How Would It Have Been Done in The 1950s?
The technique in principle wouldn’t actually have differed too much, although it would have been a much more painstaking and time-consuming process What Are We Actually Looking at When We Look at Photo 51?
Photo 51 is an image of the more hydrated ‘B’ form of DNA What About The Cross Shape of Spots?
For people like Watson and Crick, who were already building models, this cross really spells out helix. Maurice Wilkins If Franklin Had All This Information, Why Didn’T She Suggest The Structure?
Well, it’s difficult to say but one reason is probably that Rosalind had chosen to focus her attention on her X-ray photos of a less hydrated ‘A’ form of DNA What Happened After The Structure Was published?
Franklin was already working at Birkbeck College by the time Franklin and Gosling’s paper, showing Photo 51, was published in Nature