What Is Life? can be viewed as a well-reasoned theoretical prediction of what biologists should have been looking for during their search for genetic material. Both James D. Watson, and Francis Crick, who jointly proposed the double helix structure of DNA based on X-ray diffraction experiments by Rosalind Franklin, credited Schrödinger's book with presenting an early theoretical description of how the storage of genetic information would work, and each independently acknowledged the book as a source of inspiration for their initial researches. The book is based on lectures delivered under the auspices of the Institute at Trinity College, Dublin, in February 1943 and
Non-helical models of DNA structure as evidence that the strands were plectonemically wound together ("i.e.," topologically linked). The publication of the Rodley structure produced a small but significant ripple of interest in the molecular biological community. However, the level of interest was sufficiently high so that Crick - by that time one of the world’s most influential scientists - publicly suggested that the SBS structure (whose existence he doubted) should be laid to rest by intentionally creating it. Then, he reasoned, its properties could be ascertained, and then shown to be abnormal with respect to the known properties of native DNA. An investigation by Stettler