S T A T E M E N T:
"GoDNA" - the Geometry of DNA as viewed from the axial, or end, view - combining the image
seen in one 360° rotation of the double helix molecule.
Normally, when looking at the double stranded DNA from the front or side view, one sees that it is like
a twisted ladder, spiraling around itself, with 10 links (ladder-like steps) across the dual strands for
each 360° twist. Those links are where the genetic code sequence is located, built from
one of the four nucleotide bases...adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. The thicker rails of the
ladder would represent the fixed, symmetrical (antiparallel) structural, repeating units of
sugar-phosphate groups. Thus each strand is built of a series of repeating steps consisting
of base (variable)-sugar-phosphate unit (nucleotide).
In the 1970's, Robert Langridge pioneered computer generated imaging of the double helix molecule, showing
that the axial, end view, when flattened together (composited), presented a beautiful, outwardly
symmetrical snowflake-like design, based not on the number six, but rather ten.
My efforts have been to analyze the geometry of this pattern...and thus "GoDNA" was born.
I have found that a series of concentric double pentagons (decagons), each of which is intimately
related to each other...indeed defines each other...defines the architecture of this axial view. I
have attempted, through contrasts of color, tone and the geometry itself to bring out some of its
extraordinary beauty and subtleties of form. The original geometric analysis was performed on Langridge's
published works, but the forms shown here I drew by hand from the graphic knowledge gained from that
analysis and subsequent study of additional DNA forms.
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