Talk:Photo 51

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 10:01, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"giving no credit to Franklin"
In fact, the seminal Nature article (ref #3 in the Wikipedia article at the time I write this) does acknowledge Franklin. The PBS.org reference cited for "giving no credit to Franklin" does not actually support that assertion; it states only that "absent from most accounts of their Nobel Prize-winning work is the contribution made by a scientist—molecular biologist and crystallographer Rosalind Franklin." [emph. mine] Not that the original article did not acknowledge Franklin's contribution. So I'm being bold and removing that bit. Chuck (talk) 02:23, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Nickname?
Why is "Photo 51" a nickname? And if it is, this implies there was some other designation for it, which should, of course, be mentioned in the article. --Pfold (talk) 12:41, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I am proposing to remove the long, potentially highly biased excepts of Max Perutz's commentary on Photograph 51
Quoting only Max Perutz here, who was deeply entangled in the controversy of this discovery, is extremely one sided. I recommend that the long quotes from one partisan in this debate be removed, and replaced at the very least with a generic statement indicating that a debate exists concerning how much of Watson and Crick's work can be ascribed to Franklin's efforts, this photograph among them.

From the wikipedia page on Franklin herself, you can read the following below, which I'll except a key element at the top here:

'
 * 'The upshot of all this was that when Crick and Watson started to build their model in February 1953 they were working with critical parameters that had been determined by Franklin in 1951, and which she and Gosling had significantly refined in 1952, as well as with published data and other very similar data to those available at King's. Rosalind Franklin was probably never aware that her work had been used during construction of the model,[107] but Maurice Wilkins was.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

From Franklin's data and presentations, Watson and Crick had the following information with which to model DNA: 1. It was a double helix 2. It was likely antiparallel strands 3. The phosphates were on the outside (which is not trivial since they first modeled them as Linus Pauling did, on the inside) 4. The exact geometrical parameters for the diameter and pitch of the helix, etc, critical for developing their chemical model.

The image, and even more importantly, Franklin's correct and extremely informative analysis of it, did everything for them except the model of the bases (base pairing, a lot of which came from Erwin Chargaff's data and criticisms of Watson's initial "like binds with like" base-base interactions)

Maddox's book "Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA" covers this in detail, as do numerous well-documented sources. A web distillation can be found in this little report: (http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ht/36.1/rapoport.html):


 * Several months later, in November of 1951, Rosalind Franklin presented a lecture on her startling and revolutionary (but correct) discovery that the DNA's backbone lies on the outside of the molecule, and that its basic structure is helical.44 Watson, only a train ride away and intensely interested in DNA, attended her talk, "but took no notes and...misremembered important parts of what Franklin said."45 Watson did not understand Franklin's lecture because his doctoral training was in ornithology, not in chemistry, and furthermore, he resisted being lectured in the subject by a woman.46, 47 As a result, when Watson returned to his lab in Cambridge, he and Crick built a model of the DNA molecule with its backbone on the inside.48


 * In May of 1952, working alone, Franklin photographed DNA in two forms - a "dry" form and a "wet" form (also known as the B form). Her clear X-ray photograph of the wet form of DNA was revolutionary. "No one had photographed the wet form before."53 Franklin's X-ray was astonishing because she took the photograph looking down the long DNA molecule. She demonstrated that the structure of the DNA molecule was a helix, or twisted ladder, because her photographic view down the core of the molecule showed an X.54 Forty-six years after James Watson viewed Franklin's startling photograph, he still recalled it vividly - "I was shown Rosalind Franklin's X-ray photograph, and whoa! It was a helix! And a month later, we had the structure."55 Franklin stored her X-ray photograph of the wet form of the DNA molecule in her drawer in her laboratory.56


 * Unbeknownst to Franklin, Maurice Wilkins, preoccupied with preventing Franklin from getting ahead of him in her research, began to secretly copy her work when she was absent from the lab, and he concealed these copies of her private work in his drawer, without her knowledge.57

Footnotes from webpage: 44. Ardell, David. "Biotech: Rosalind Franklin." About Biotech. http://www.accessexcellence.org/AB/BC/Rosalind_Franklin.html. Accessed on October 4, 2001. 45. Parshall, pp.72–74. 46. Sayre, p.127. 47. James Watson by his own admission was "a birdwatcher" with no training in chemistry. Watson lecture. 48. Encyclopedia of World Scientists, p.134. 49. Hellman, pp.149–150. 50. Parshall, pp.72–74. 51. Hellman, p.145. 52. Watson, The Double Helix, p.16. 53. Oakes, p.134. 54. See Appendix p.8, Franklin's famous X-ray crystallography photograph of the DNA molecule. 55. Watson lecture. 56. Ibid. 57. "Since the spring [of 1952] he [Wilkins] had been surreptitiously duplicating Franklin's analytic work on DNA." White, pp.277–278.

One of Rosalind Franklin's important contributions to the Crick and Watson model was her lecture at the seminar in November 1951, where she presented to those present, among them Watson, the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, and her position whereby the phosphate units are located in the external part of the molecule. She also specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that have considerable importance in terms of the stability of the molecule. Franklin was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule. The other contribution include an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called photograph 51),[93] that was briefly shown to James Watson by Maurice Wilkins in January 1953,[94][95] and a report written for an MRC biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952 which was shown by Dr. Max Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory to both Crick and Watson. This MRC report contained data from the King's group, including some of Rosalind Franklin's and Raymond Gosling's work, and was given to Francis Crick — who was working on his thesis on haemoglobin structure — by his thesis supervisor Max Perutz, a member of the visiting committee.[96][97] Maurice Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Rosalind Franklin's Ph.D. student Raymond Gosling, because she was leaving King's to work at Birkbeck. There was allegedly nothing untoward in this transfer of data to Wilkins,[98][99] since the Director Sir John Randall had insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and had instructed Franklin in a letter to even stop thinking about it.[100] Also it was implied by Horace Freeland Judson, incorrectly, that Maurice Wilkins had taken the photograph out of Rosalind Franklin's drawer.[101] However, the B-DNA X-ray pattern photograph in question was shown to Watson by Wilkins — without Franklin's permission.
 * except from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin *****

Likewise Max Perutz saw "no harm" in showing an MRC report containing the conclusions of Franklin and Gosling's X-ray data analysis to Crick, since it had not been marked as confidential, although – in the customary British manner in which everything official is considered secret until it is deliberately made public – the report was not expected to reach outside eyes".[102] Indeed after the publication of Watson's The Double Helix exposed Perutz's act, he received so many letters questioning his judgment that he felt the need to both answer them all[103] and to post a general statement in Science excusing himself on the basis of being "inexperienced and casual in administrative matters".[104]

Perutz also claimed that the MRC information was already made available to the Cambridge team when Watson had attended Franklin's seminar in November 1951. A preliminary version of much of the important material contained in the 1952 December MRC report had been presented by Franklin in a talk she had given in 1951 November, which Dr. Watson had attended but not understood.[105][106] This seems to be a rather tenuous claim. There is a significant difference between the results Franklin achieved at the end of 1951 (at the time of the seminar) and those she held when editing the report – at the end of 1952. It was a year in which her knowledge substantially increased. This and more, Watson and Crick received the report from Perutz during February, 1953, a short time after Watson received Franklin’s type B photograph, no. 51. Thus, there is no doubt that the report helped them to analyze Franklin’s correct data, which explain this and other photographs.

The Perutz letter was as said one of three letters, published with letters by Wilkins and Watson, which discussed their various contributions. Watson clarified the importance of the data obtained from the MRC report as he had not recorded these data while attending Franklin's lecture in 1951. The upshot of all this was that when Crick and Watson started to build their model in February 1953 they were working with critical parameters that had been determined by Franklin in 1951, and which she and Gosling had significantly refined in 1952, as well as with published data and other very similar data to those available at King's. Rosalind Franklin was probably never aware that her work had been used during construction of the model,[107] but Maurice Wilkins was.

Type3secretion (talk) 18:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Cultural Reference: Play is O.K., but TV is "trivia"?
Please explain why a play (and a motion picture) is a valid "cultural reference," but a reference to an image that can be seen in a popular television series (that most people might recognize Photo 51 from, without realizing its significance) is considered "trivia."

I based my decision to add the information, about the image of Photo 51 as a cultural reference, upon several similar entries, such as the many examples at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_references_of_the_September_11_attacks#Television.

Should I have placed the information (that was subsequently deleted) in a separate 'Trivia section'?

As a "greenhorn" contributor, I would appreciate any constructive advice.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jensenr629 (talk) 00:37, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Since it has been a week, and I have not received any advice (or explanation), I am re-posting my Cultural Reference.

Before it gets removed (again) because it is deemed "trivial," I would appreciate a valid explanation.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Jensenr629 (talk) 04:11, 14 May 2013 (UTC)


 * There are several problems with its inclusion. First, there is no reliable source (WP:RS) for the information.  Presumably it is being added simply because you saw it there.  That constitutes WP:OR.  With over 100 episodes, and probably more than that number of T-shirts, it is unclear that this occurrence is truly noteworthy, while saying something appeared once on the show (amid all these episodes) provides insufficient detail to be useful.  In all it doesn't pass the standards set forth in "In popular culture" content. (Let me add that there are a lot of bad popular culture lists on WP, so using another existing one as your model may mislead you.)  Agricolae (talk) 14:06, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Who took the photograph?
Several sources indicate that the photograph was taken by Raymond Gosling. See e.g. this report from Nature. -- 203.171.196.11 (talk) 00:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Opening sentence
'...taken by Rosalind Franklin in May 1952 under the direction of Rosalind Franklin at King's College London in Sir John Randall's group.'

Was she taking direction from herself? Valetude (talk) 14:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * No. The first name was originally Raymond Gosling, and it should be Raymond Gosling. A user came by and changed it (see diff). I have fixed it now. The picture was taken by Raymond Gosling. Corkeline (talk) 00:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

introductory text
The phrase in the lede "X-ray based fiber diffraction image of a paracrystalline gel composed of DNA fiber" is technically correct, but this is an encyclopedia article, and should be a little less technical. I recommend moving this phrase to the section on how Photo-51 was taken, and simply putting "X-ray diffraction image of DNA" in the lede. ...unfortunately, there isn't a section on how Photo-51 was taken. This should be added. Skepticalgiraffe (talk) 00:59, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Add image
Can you please add the image form the italian page? https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Experimental_setup_of_Photo_51.svg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:8108:54C0:2FE6:61ED:E79E:15B:54A4 (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2023 (UTC)