ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

What was “Photograph 51,” and where is it now?

• In Event: Reappraising Three Iconic Images in the History of Science

English Abstract

“Photograph 51” was the sole image Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling chose to include in the April 1953 Nature paper they published to accompany Watson and Crick’s announcement of the double helix. For this reason, it has been widely assumed that Photo 51 was the specific DNA diffraction pattern Maurice Wilkins showed to Watson without Franklin’s knowledge about twelve weeks earlier. In turn, Photo 51 has become a widely circulated image that represents not only Franklin’s research achievements but also the obstacles Franklin faced in her career. This paper first will offer a new explanation for both the striking visual qualities of Photo 51 and the fact that Franklin seemed to find it unremarkable (as indicated by the fact that she made no notes about it for ten months after taking it). Namely, Photo 51 was undertaken not as a new experiment, but in order to get a publication-worthy image to illustrate research she had already done on a previous photo of the same DNA sample; this is why her notebooks show no fresh analysis of the Photo 51 pattern. Second, the paper attempts to reconstruct the history of Photo 51's circulation before and after April 1953.

Author

• Alistair Sponsel, Science History Institute