I like the way that Kary Mullis framed his discovery of PCR. The way that he writes and tells his personal story leading up to his big find is very refreshing compared to the normal readings for scientific discoveries. One aspect that stood out to me was the fact that when he was working on PCR, he didn’t know what he was working toward and how huge of an impact it would have. I think this is something we really take for granted now since we just learn about these established things but sometimes don’t consider what technology looked like before and that someone had to discover or invent it. This was also unique for me for the fact that the finding wasn’t by accident unlike what I usually read about for major discoveries such as antibiotics. Mullis had a problem that he was working towards with a couple of problems that he had to work around and he had to piece his ideas together to come up with the PCR technique.
