Page:Astounding Science Fiction v54n06 (1955-02).djvu/139

 progress in solving just that sort of problem. The amino acid arrangements in the protein, insulin—lack of which brings on diabetes—was completely worked out in 1953. To be sure, insulin is only one fifth the size of hemoglobin, but there are still just about 8 x 10$113$ possible arrangements of its amino acids, and that is a most respectable quantity.

How did the biochemists do it?

The fact is that straight trial-and-error technique would have been an unbearable trial and a colossal error. So they used other methods. There are other methods, you know.

What, for instance?

Well, that's another story for another article at another time. What we have now is enough for one sitting.

The following series of figures is almost certainly familiar to you:



This series of figures are all—including #6, despite appearances—single figures, produced by simple geometry. They are single members of a family of figures similar to the family of conic sections. Conic sections range from a straight line through hyperbola, parabola, ellipse to circle.

The above figures are toroidal sections; they don't come from a biology text, but can be produced at home with a knife and a doughnut. #1 and #2 are produced by cutting the doughnut in a plane parallel to the plane of the doughnut. #3 through being the intersection of the plane passed through the axis, of course. #6 looks for all the world like two separate entities, but recognizing it as simply the cut surfaces of a doughnut, it's evident that it's actually a single figure.
 * 1) 6 are produced by cuts varying distances from the axis of the doughnut's hole—#6

A smoke-ring would show the same characteristics, of course, but being highly dynamic, retaining its structure only by reason of its dynamic movement, it can't be sectioned without dissolution. RV 140