As early as 1949, Erwin Chargaff described certain irregularities in the composition of DNA and formulated the concept of "complementarity"—later referred to as "Chargaff's rule" and, still later, as "base-pairing"—which was the most important single piece of evidence for the double-helical structure of DNA, to be described by Watson and Crick in 1953. His finding, together with others from his laboratory, has brought Dr. Chargaff many honors and awards from his country and abroad, including the National Medal of Science. To some scientists, he is a controversial figure (he's been called a "gadfly" and a "maverick"). But even they, like people outside his specialized field, admire Dr. Chargaff as a brilliant literary stylist of penetrating insight and incisive wit. His scholarship is wide-ranging, and he is as comfortable with the classics and all aspects of historical and contemporary culture as he is with matters of science. In this book, he looks back at his life in Vienna between two world wars, his introduction to the educational system and its ambiance in the United States, his research and its ramifications, and contemporary "big science."