Milestones

The death of FRANCIS CRICK deprives the world of a remarkable scientist and conversationalist whose forceful voice and overpowering laugh made him the focal point of any room that he chose to occupy. From the morning of Feb. 28, 1953, when he and I discovered the double-helical structure of DNAand showed that the secret of life was a large moleculehe held court over the new field of research that this discovery unleashed. Exuding an Edwardian elegance of logic as well as dress, he instantly brought to mind the good-natured arrogance of Henry Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. From early adolescence,...

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