Editing Francis Crick (section)

==Post-World War II life and work==
In 1947, aged 31, Crick began studying biology and became part of an important migration of physical scientists into biology research. This migration was made possible by the newly won influence of physicists such as [[John Randall (physicist)|Sir John Randall]], who had helped win the war with inventions such as [[radar]]. Crick had to adjust from the "elegance and deep simplicity" of physics to the "elaborate chemical mechanisms that natural selection had evolved over billions of years." He described this transition as, "almost as if one had to be born again". According to Crick, the experience of learning physics had taught him something important—hubris—and the conviction that since physics was already a success, great advances should also be possible in other sciences such as biology. Crick felt that this attitude encouraged him to be more daring than typical biologists who tended to concern themselves with the daunting problems of biology and not the past successes of physics{{citation needed|date=November 2017}}.

For the better part of two years, Crick worked on the physical properties of [[cytoplasm]] at Cambridge's [[Strangeways Research Laboratory]], headed by [[Honor Bridget Fell]], with a [[Medical Research Council (UK)|Medical Research Council]] studentship, until he joined [[Max Perutz]] and [[John Kendrew]] at the [[Cavendish Laboratory]]. The Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge was under the general direction of [[William Lawrence Bragg|Sir Lawrence Bragg]], who had won the Nobel Prize in 1915 at the age of 25. Bragg was influential in the effort to beat a leading American chemist, [[Linus Pauling]], to the discovery of [[DNA structure|DNA's structure]] (after having been pipped at the post by Pauling's success in determining the alpha helix structure of proteins). At the same time Bragg's Cavendish Laboratory was also effectively competing with [[King's College London]], whose Biophysics department was under the direction of Randall. (Randall had refused Crick's application to work at King's College.) Francis Crick and [[Maurice Wilkins]] of King's College were personal friends, which influenced subsequent scientific events as much as the close friendship between Crick and [[James Watson]]. Crick and Wilkins first met at King's College{{citation needed|date=January 2013}} and not, as erroneously recorded by two authors, at the [[British Admiralty|Admiralty]] during World War II.