Francis Crick’s family moved to London during the economic slump of 1929. At school Crick was especially interested in physics, chemistry and mathematics.

During the WW2 he joined the British Admiralty Research Laboratory, developing radar and mines for naval war. After the war he read Erwin Schrödinger’s book about Physical Aspects of the Living Cell. Crick switched from physics to biology.

Crick began working at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge. In 1951, an American biologist, James Watson, joined the lab ant the two formed a close working relationship. 

They were convinced that if the three-dimensional structure of a molecule known to play a role in passing genetic information-DNA-could be determined, the way genes are passed on might also be revealed. They were getting closer, as were other scientist chasing the same goal; a race was heating up. Watson and Crick shared the Nobel Prize in physiology/medicine in 1962. He also became director of Cambridge University’s Laboratory. He wrote two books: Of Molecules and Men (1966) and Life itself: Its Origin and Nature (1981).