Although the chemistry was wrong, Linus Pauling's triple-stranded DNA model was a catalyst for James Watson and Francis Crick to solve the structure of DNA.
In 1952, Peter Pauling was a student at Cambridge when his father, Linus, sent him a paper proposing that DNA was a triple helix. James (Jim) Watson eagerly read the paper and realized that Pauling got it wrong.
The last graduate student Linus Pauling ever had. Unconcerned by reputations, Meselson did what he was interested in. Along with Franklin Stahl, Meselson carried out what many biologists regard as "one of the most beautiful experiments in biology."