Rosalind Franklin’s 1953 DNA paper in Nature started on page 740. Written with Raymond Gosling, “Molecular Configuration in Sodium Thymonucleate” occupied pages 740–741 of volume 171.
The paper was published on 25 April 1953 in the same issue as two related DNA papers. Watson and Crick’s model appeared first on pages 737–738, followed by Wilkins, Stokes, and Wilson’s diffraction work on pages 738–740. Franklin and Gosling’s contribution began immediately afterward on page 740.
This page number is easy to mix up because the three papers were printed consecutively and are frequently discussed together as the 1953 Nature DNA papers. Page 740 is also significant because the issue’s layout placed Franklin and Gosling’s evidence directly after the model and supporting diffraction report. Their paper presented crystallographic observations about DNA’s helical structure rather than the complete model later associated with Watson and Crick.