By Kamila G.
Staff Writer
Rosalind Franklin was a very famous woman of her time but her story was always covered by men. This is the same reason many people don’t know her or her story.
Early Life
Rosalind Franklin was born on July 25, 1920 in London. She grew up pre-world war 2. From her childhood Franklin showed very good scholastic abilities. She ain’t even said, “Rosalind is alarmingly clever – she spends all her time doing arithmetic for pleasure, and invariably gets her sums right.” Early in her life Franklin went to private preparatory and boarding schools which prepared her for enrollment in Newnham College. And later her job at King’s College.
Education
Franklin majored in physics chemistry. Franklin refused to let challenges of the war during her time get to her. She quickly and steadily pursued her education during world war 2, despite the bombs that showered down on London during the Blitz, despite the shortages and rationing of food, despite family being pressured to leave Cambridge to go to a safer area. Even when the Nazis marched across Europe, Franklin stayed strong with her studies.
Many people know that Rosalind Franklin discovered DNA, but not many know how. While working at King’s a PHD student named Raymond Gosling worked with Dr. Franklin. Dr.Gosling designed and created a tilting micro camera and undering the necessary conditions to get an accurate image of DNA. May 1952, helped by Fr. Gosling and the special. Dr. Franklin was able to suspend a tiny amount of DNA fiber, the same thickness as a stand of hair. And bombed it with an X-ray beam, for 100 hours. The diffraction of the electrons in the atoms of the fighter and the rays created a pattern on the photographic plate. Dr. Franklin performed mathematical computations to analyze the pattern for an attempt to reveal the DNA structure.
In the end we can see Dr. Franklin was an important figure in the discovery of the structure of DNA. Her divorce changed the future of science forever. Thanks to her and her discoveries science was able to change for the better.