Microbiology and Immunology

WORLD OF MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY Crick, Francis

139

•

sions. As a schoolboy, he won a prize for collecting wildflow-

ers. In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit,Crick describes

how, along with his brother, he “was mad about tennis,” but

not much interested in other sports and games. At the age of

fourteen, he obtained a scholarship to Mill Hill School in

North London. Four years later, at eighteen, he entered

University College, London. At the time of his matriculation,

his parents had moved from Northampton to Mill Hill, and this

allowed Crick to live at home while attending university.

Crick obtained a second-class honors degree in physics, with

additional work in mathematics, in three years. In his autobi-

ography, Crick writes of his education in a rather light-hearted

way. Crick states that his background in physics and mathe-

matics was sound, but quite classical, while he says that he

learned and understood very little in the field of chemistry.

Like many of the physicists who became the first molecular

Francis Crick (right) and James Watson (left), who deduced the structure of the DNA double helix (shown between them).

womi_C 5/6/03 2:05 PM Page 139