By 1951, Crick made his now famous pairing with fellow DNA enthusiast, James Watson. By this time, Crick was a 35 years old, compared to the young Watson at 23. They shared a common interest in how genetic information was stored and replicated. They talked endlessly on the subject, considering DNA’s possible structure.

Using Crick’s past in X-Ray diffraction, along with new X-Ray images obtained by Maurice Wilkins, the two decided that all research pointed towards a helical structure for DNA. With this idea in mind, Watson and Crick produced a small, yet flawed, theoretical model of DNA which demonstrated just how little anyone knew about the structure.

The two were not about to produce another failed structure, but since both were working on other research projects, time to discover the true structure was quite slim.