Title:

Letter from Eric I. Hamilton to Francis Crick

Creator:

Hamilton, Eric I.

Recipient:

Crick, Francis, 1916-2004

Date:

20 August 1973

Description:

In his letter Hamilton speculated how recent findings in chemistry and biochemistry related to Crick's concept of directed panspermia, the idea that life on earth was deliberately seeded by an extraterrestrial civilization. Crick speculated that life on earth evolved from a single source--perhaps supplied externally--because the genetic code is universal to all organisms. Hamilton asked what the implications of a universal code were for the future course of evolution, if the genome was subjected to man-made mutation-inducing agents.

Original Repository:

The Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers

Location:

Box: 12. Folder: PP/CRI/D/1/2/3

Rights:

Reproduced with permission of Eric I. Hamilton.

Genre:

Letters (correspondence)

Subject:

Organelle Biogenesis, Genetic Code, and Biological Evolution

Format:

Text

Extent:

2 pages

Relation:

Letter from Francis Crick to Eric I. Hamilton, 1973

Language:

English

Legacy Source Citation:

Original Repository. Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine. Francis Harry Compton Crick Papers. 11646. URL. http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk/

Legacy ID:

SCBBMP

NLM ID:

101584582X177

Profiles Collection:

The Francis Crick Papers

Shareable Link:

https://profiles.nlm.nih.gov/101584582X177

Story Section:

Embryology and the Organization of DNA in Higher Organisms, 1966-1976