Life reads its genes three letters at a time. Four bases in triplets give 4³ = 64 codons — but they specify only 20 amino acids plus a stop. So the code is degenerate: most amino acids have several codons, differing mostly in the third, “wobble” position, which buffers mutations. Nearly universal across all life, cracked codon by codon in the 1960s — UUU meant phenylalanine, the first word read.
The demo counts the codons and the degeneracy — more codons than meanings: live demo
HISTORY & CREDIT Nirenberg, Khorana, Holley
“The genetic code is a one-to-one cipher.” — it is degenerate: 61 sense codons for 20 amino acids, so most have several, wobbling in the third base. cited
triplets · 4 bases, read 3 at a time → 4³ = 64 codons. degeneracy · 61 sense codons for 20 amino acids — redundancy in the wobble position buffers mutation. 1961–66 · Nirenberg (UUU→Phe), Khorana, Holley (Nobel 1968).
A near-universal dictionary with spare words. molecular biology
RECOMMEND FOR I-13 the count, on the compiler
On i-13, 4³=64 codons, 61 sense, 20 amino acids — average degeneracy ~3.05:
$ i13 run lf_genetic-code.i13
RUN OK · 30 step(s)
codons = 64 sense = 61 amino_acids = 20
degenerate = 1 avg_degeneracy_x100 = 305
Recommend as a NULL — a counting fact (B39/B44). 4³=64 and the codon map are pinned; the assignment is a fixed table (an encoding, B44). NULL — 64 words, 20 meanings.