James Watson’s The Double Helix,[1] a slim but powerful tome, has long been one of my favorite books. Both in class and in individual consultations, I have recommended to students his personal account of the road to one of the most celebrated Nobel prizes of the last century with enthusiasm bordering on zeal. My main point has always been that on top of intelligence, knowledge, and hard work, research worthy of its name requires pluck. And loads of it. Thus I was quite startled a moment ago, just after recommending the book once again, that I could not find it in my library. But I was devastated when I found out that there was no sign of it in my Residua, either. How true a trace of my life is my magnum opus supposed to be if such an important influence on my own thinking is entirely missing from it? And how many more painful discoveries of this sort still await me n the years to come?

Footnote

1. New York: Atheneum, 1968.