Education
He studied at Cheadle Hulme School in Manchester.
He studied at Cheadle Hulme School in Manchester.
The first was authored by Francis Crick and James Watson, and the third by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling. The was awarded in 1962 to Crick, Watson and Wilkins for this work. In 1993, on the 40th anniversary of the publication of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, a plaque was erected in the Quad (courtyard) of the Strand campus of King"s College London commemorating the contributions of Franklin, Gosling, Stokes, Wilson and Wilkins to deoxyribonucleic acid X-ray diffraction studies.
Stokes was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire.
He received a first-class degree in the natural science tripos in 1940 at Trinity College Cambridge and then researched X-ray crystallography of Imperfect Crystals for his Doctor of Philosophy in 1943 under the supervision of Lawrence Bragg at the Cavendish Laboratory. Stokes lectured in physics at Royal Holloway College, London before joining John Randall"s Biophysics Research Unit at King"s College London in 1947.
He has been credited, as being the first person to demonstrate that the deoxyribonucleic acid molecule was probably helical in shape. Maurice Wilkins wrote in his autobiography (page 160) that he asked Stokes to predict what a helical structure would look like as an x-ray diffraction photograph, and that he was able to determine this by the next day through mathematical calculations made during a short train journey.
Stokes continued to work on optical diffraction in large biological molecules.
His publications include the books The Theory of the Optical Properties of Inhomogeneous Materials. London: East. and F.N. Spon Limited, (1963) and The Principles of Atomic and Nuclear Physics Chief Justice Smith and Arkansas Stokes, London, Edward Arnold, (1972). Stokes retired from King"s College London as a senior lecturer in 1982.
He wrote extensively, and his books include The Principles Of Atomic And Nuclear Physics (1972), and The Theory Of The Optical Properties Of Inhomogeneous Materials (1963).
He was a choral singer, played the piano and was an elder in his local free church, in Welwyn Garden City.