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Podcast: Book Friends Forever
Episode: Crick by Matthew Cobb read by Neil Gardner
Description: 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 r...