“What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking ye colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”
– Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke, 5 Feb. 1676; Corres I, 416
In addition to calculus and gravity, Sir Newton also figured out another truth: what we know now and what we do now are built on knowledge and technology that was developed by those who came before us.
It’s also just fun to see how scientists figured out all the things in our textbooks, without the convenience and speed of modern technologies!
Here are some of our favorites:
Books
The Eighth Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press). It is a beautifully told, fascinating, and nearly thorough account of the explosion of the field of molecular biology in the middle of the 20th century.
The Man in the Monkeynut Coat, by Kersten T. Hall (Oxford University Press). The O.G. of biomolecular x-ray crystallography, William Astbury was a professor at the University of Leeds studying wool fibers and then DNA. He had his own Photo 51 a decade before Rosalind Franklin! If only they had both had time to realize what they had!
Gene Machine, by Venki Ramakrishnan (Basic Books). The race to solve the structure of the ribosome, interwoven by the tale of his own journey through training and academia.
Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren. A little bit of chemistry, a little bit of biology, and a lot of the STEM academia research feels (both good and bad!).
Online
The Francis Crick Papers (also available as a Profile in Science through the National Library of Medicine)
Marshal Nirenberg Genetic Code Charts (NLM Profile in Science)
Barbara McClintock’s Corn Kernels (The Barbara McClintock Papers)