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
Francis Crick diffraction images collected by Franklin provided the best evidence for the helical nature of DNA. While Franklin's experimental work proved important to Crick and Watson's development of a correct model, she herself could not realize it at the time. When she left King's College, Director Sir John Randall insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and ordered Franklin to not even think about it. Franklin subsequently did superb work in J. D. Bernal's Lab at Birkbeck College with the tobacco mosaic virus extending ideas on helical construction. Crick was often described as very talkative, with Watson – in