Photo 51 was taken by
Raymond Gosling, working under
Rosalind Franklin, on 2 May 1952. According to a later account by Gosling, although
Photo 51 was an exceptionally clear diffraction pattern of the "B" form of DNA, Franklin was more interested in solving the diffraction pattern of the "A" form of DNA, so she put Gosling's
Photo 51 to the side. When it had been decided that Franklin would leave King's College, and with Gosling now reporting to Wilkins, Gosling showed the photograph to
Maurice Wilkins (who would become Gosling's advisor after Franklin left). A few days later, Wilkins showed the photo to
James Watson after Gosling had returned to working under Wilkins' supervision. Franklin did not know this at the time because she was leaving
King's College London. Randall, the head of the group, had asked Gosling to share all his data with Wilkins. Watson recognized the pattern as a helix because his co-worker
Francis Crick had previously published a paper of what the diffraction pattern of a helix would be. the Nobel Committee generally does not make posthumous nominations. Gosling's work also was not cited by the prize committee. The photograph provided key information that was essential for developing a model of DNA. that led to the development of the DNA model and confirmed the prior postulated
double helical structure of DNA, which were presented in the series of three articles in the journal
Nature in 1953. As historians of science have re-examined the period during which this image was obtained, considerable controversy has arisen over both the significance of the contribution of this image to the work of Watson and Crick, as well as the methods by which they obtained the image. Franklin had been hired independently of Maurice Wilkins, who, taking over as Gosling's new supervisor, showed
Photo 51 to Watson and Crick without Franklin's knowledge. Whether Franklin would have deduced the structure of DNA on her own, from her own data, had Watson and Crick not obtained Gosling's image, is a hotly debated topic, made more controversial by the negative caricature of Franklin presented in the early chapters of Watson's history of the research on DNA structure,
The Double Helix. Watson admitted his distortion of Franklin in his book, noting in the epilogue: Since my initial impressions about [Franklin], both scientific and personal (as recorded in the early pages of this book) were often wrong, I want to say something here about her achievements. ==Cultural references==