Interviewee: Peter Pauling. In 1952, Peter Pauling was a student at Cambridge when his father, Linus, sent him a paper proposing that DNA was a triple helix. James (Jim) Watson eagerly read the paper and realized that Pauling got it wrong. (DNAi Location: Code > Finding the Structure > Players > Linus Pauling > The triple helix)

As I say, when this manuscript arrived, Jim tore it from my pocket and opened it and read it and they discovered, you know, that it was wrong. And my nephew asked a few years ago, why did you make it three strands, and he said well, he didn't know, he didn't know how much water was in it and he didn't know the diameter, he had a rough, rough information of the diameter. And the mistake he, that it wasn't an acid, he told my nephew that was just a mistake, you know, he temporarily lost his marbles.

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