"Linking numbers and nucleosomes"

Date:
1972-1977
Reference:
PP/CRI/H/6/12/2
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: "Linking numbers and nucleosomes". Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    TWIN CITIES UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA School of Mathematics 127 Vincent Hall 206 Church Street S.E. Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 J July 11, 1977 Professor F.H.C. Crick Salk Institute for Biological Studies P.O. Box 1809 San Diego, California 92112 Dear Professor Crick: lour paper Linking numbers and nucleosomes (PNAS 73, 1976) has recently come to my attention. I was most pleased that some recent work in differential geometry, work in which I was involved myself, is interesting to biologists. I was disappointed, however, to see that the mathematical results on which your paper is based were not properly credited. In reading your paper one gets the impression that these are results of Brock Fuller, whereas in fact they are results of James H. White and are contained in his thesis, which was written under my direction and is published in the American Journal of Mathematics 91 (1969), 693-728. Specifically, the formula W = L-T (W = writhing number, L = linking number, T = twist) which on the first page of your paper you appear to credit to Fuller, is in fact due to White (loc. cit.). It is nothing more than the last displayed formula at the bottom of page 700 of White's paper: This is in fact the case n = 1 of Theorem 1 of his paper (p.705). The definitions of Fuller are different in no essential respect from those of White. On the second page of your paper you give a procedure for finding the liking number by marking the edges of the ribbon in different colors. In its mathematical essence this is a result of Gauss. This way of looking at it is essentially an observation of mine (The self-linking number of a closed space curve. J. Math. Mech. 17 (1968) 975-985- See section 4, White's paper was completed early in 1968 and came out in print in 1969, well before Fuller's paper (1971). White tells me that he had sent Fuller a preprint of his paper. Fuller apologized in a letter of March 29, 1972 (copy enclosed), recognizing both the priority and superi ority of White's work. In his paper in the Rev. Roum. Math. Pures et Appi. (17 (1972) 1329-334) he acknowledges White's priority. I had known about these things and had hoped that they would settle the priority question. However, the letter was not published and the Roumanian = L(f,f e ) ■'V p. 984).
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