THE DOUBLE HELIX: WHAT WAS JAMES WATSON PRIMARY MOTIVATION FOR STUDYING NUCLEIC ACIDS?

Crick and Watson assumed that the nucleotides, or components of DNA, were fit together in a regular way. This would be the simplest model of DNA structure, so they chose it as a starting point. There are four types of nucleotides in DNA, and their order must be complex, since that's how DNA carries information. However, Watson and Crick hypothesized that the four different nucleotides must each be bound together in a similar way, to create a regular pattern or structure.