An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

ZIMMER, Karl Günter

1 entries
  • 254.1

Ueber die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur.

Nachr. Ges. Wiss. Göttíngen, math.-fis. Kl., Fachgr. 6, 1, 189-245, 1935.

This paper is divided into four sections. The first, by Timofeev-Ressovskij, describes the mutagenic effects of x-rays and gamma rays on Drosophila melanogaster; the second part, by Zimmer, analyzes Timofeev-Ressovskij's results theoretically. The third and most remarkable section, by Delbrück, puts forth a model of genetic mutation based on atomic physics. It represents Delbrück's debut in biology. This has been called the “green paper”, referring to the color of the paper cover of the Nachrichten, and also the Dreimännerarbeit of genetics, for the three authors involved. This paper provided much of the material for Erwin Schrodinger's What is life? (1944), a work that takes a "naive physicist's" approach to the problems of heredity and variation; Shrodinger's book is often cited as having inspired Watson, Crick, Wilkins and others to focus their careers on the problems of molecular biology.

Digital facsimile of the 1935 paper from Universität Zurich at this link. English translation of the complete paper with commentary and six essays in Creating a Physical Biology.  The Three-Man Paper and Early Molecular Biology, edited by Phillip R. Sloan and Brandon Fogel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

 

 



Subjects: BIOLOGY › MOLECULAR BIOLOGY, GENETICS / HEREDITY