Answer:
The number of nucleotides that are present on DNA is the cause of this "degeneration" of the genetic code.
Explanation:
There are 20 different aminoacids that can be used to synthesize proteins. If only one nucleotide encoded each aminoacid, we would only have 4 different aminoacids, because there are only four types of nucleotides on our DNA; adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine.
If two nucleotides encoded each aminoacid, we would be able to have [tex]4^{2} = 16[/tex] different aminoacids. Still not enough.
If three nucleotides encode each aminoacid, we have [tex]4^{3} = 64[/tex] different aminoacids. These exceeds the number of aminoacids available for protein synthesis, so more than one codon (set of 3 nucleotides) encode for the same aminoacid.
