Just
finished reading a very nice book that illustrates the history of two
scientific disciplines, modern cosmology and molecular biology, through the
life stories of two founding members of the respective fields. Origins of
molecular biology is intervened with the history of phage genetics that was
kick started by Max Delbruck and modern cosmology greatly benefited from astute
theoretical predictions by George Gamow. These two personalities and science
cross paths many times in the history. It is depicted in great detail by Gino Serge in a book titled: Ordinary Geniuses: How two mavericks shaped
modern science. Scholarship of Dr. Serge in two separate fields is as remarkable as his story telling skills.
Max
Delbruck was desperate to do the ‘next big thing’. He was not quite successful
as a quantum physicist. But some thing that fascinated him was ‘quantum basis
of life’. It was assumed that new set of rules, that are different from those
governing other physical bodies, was needed to unravel life. I believe Delbruck
was in search of this ‘new laws of nature’ when he first started out. But the elegant
structure of DNA proposed by Watson and Crick convinced everyone that nature of
life can be explained by existing laws of nature and life has chemical basis of
origin.
It
is fascinating to think that hardly 60 years back we did not know for sure even
the nature of hereditary material. So the big question was right out there,
obvious to everyone. Unfortunately I am still in search for ‘the question’. History
of modern biology starts from the pea breeding experiment conducted by Gregory
Mendel. So the task I undertook as my New Year resolution is not quite
impossible. But it is not easy either. Reading this book helped me to identify
some important papers that I need to discuss. The first few months of 2015 is going
to be very busy. Therefore I may not be able to discuss the papers in the first few months.
But hopefully I will be able to do so once some of the important commitments are
dealt with.
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