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George Gamow
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George Gamow
George Gamow
March 4, 1904 (o.s. February 20,
Born
1904)
Odessa, Russian Empire
Died
August 19, 1968 (aged 64)
Boulder, Colorado, US
Nationality
United States, Russia
Fields
Physicist, Science writer
University of Göttingen
Niels Bohr Institute
Cavendish Laboratory
Institutions
The George Washington
University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Colorado at Boulder
Doctoral
advisor
Alexander Friedmann
Doctoral
students
Ralph Asher Alpher
Cosmic microwave background
Known for
radiation, Quantum tunnelling,
Big Bang
Notable
awards
Kalinga Prize (1956)
George Gamow (Russian pronunciation: [ˈɡaməf]; March 4 [O.S. February 20] 1904 – August 19,
1968), born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov (Георгий Антонович Гамов), was a Russian-born
theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He discovered alpha decay via quantum tunneling and
worked on radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, big
bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background, nucleocosmogenesis and genetics.
Contents
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1 Life and early career
2 Big Bang nucleosynthesis
3 DNA and later career
4 Writings
5 Books
o 5.1 Popular
 5.1.1 Mr. Tompkins series
o 5.2 Science textbooks
6 See also
7 References
8 External links
[edit] Life and early career
Gamow was born in the city of Odessa, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) to mixed RussianUkrainian parents. He was educated at the Novorossiya University in Odessa (1922–23) and at
the University of Leningrad (1923–1929). Gamow studied under Alexander Friedmann for some
time in Leningrad, though Friedmann died in 1925. At the University Gamow made friends with
three other students of theoretical physics, Lev Landau, Dmitri Ivanenko, and Matvey Bronshtein
(who was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938 by the Soviet regime). The four formed a group
known as the Three Musketeers which met to discuss and analyze the ground-breaking papers on
quantum mechanics published during those years.
On graduation, he worked on quantum theory in Göttingen, where his research into the atomic
nucleus provided the basis for his doctorate. He then worked at the Theoretical Physics Institute
of the University of Copenhagen, from 1928 to 1931, with a break to work with Ernest
Rutherford at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge. He continued to study the atomic nucleus
(proposing the "liquid drop" model), but also worked on stellar physics with Robert Atkinson
and Fritz Houtermans.
In 1931 Gamow was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
at age 28 — one of the youngest in the history of this organization.[1][2] (The youngest
corresponding member elected to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR was the outstanding
Armenian mathematician Sergey Mergelyan, elected at age 24.) During the period 1931-1934,
George Gamow worked in the Physical Department of the Radium Institute (Leningrad) headed
by Vitaly Khlopin. Under the guidance and direct participation of Igor Kurchatov, Lev
Mysovskii and George Gamow, Europe's first cyclotron was built. In 1932, George Gamow and
Lev Mysovskii submitted a draft for consideration by the Academic Council of the Radium
Institute, which approved it, and in 1937 the cyclotron was completed.[3][4].
Laboratory staff 1931: W. H. Bragg (sitting, center): physicist A. Lebedev (leftmost), G. Gamow
(rightmost)
In the early 1900s, radioactive materials were known to have characteristic exponential decay
rates or half lives. At the same time, radiation emissions were known to have certain
characteristic energies. By 1928, Gamow had solved the theory of the alpha decay of a nucleus
via tunnelling, with mathematical help from Nikolai Kochin[5][6]. The problem was also solved
independently by Ronald W Gurney and Edward U Condon[7][8]. Gurney and Condon did not,
however, achieve the quantitative results achieved by Gamow. Classically, the particle is
confined to the nucleus because of the high energy requirement to escape the very strong
potential. Also classically, it takes an enormous amount of energy to pull apart the nucleus. In
quantum mechanics, however, there is a probability the particle can tunnel through the potential
and escape. Gamow solved a model potential for the nucleus and derived from first principles a
relationship between the half-life of the alpha-decay event process and the energy of the
emission, which had been previously discovered empirically, and was known as the GeigerNuttall law.[9]
Gamow then worked at a number of Soviet establishments before deciding to flee Russia because
of increased oppression. His first two attempts to defect with his wife, Lyubov Vokhminzeva,
were in 1932 and involved attempting to kayak: first a 250-kilometer paddle over the Black Sea
to Turkey and then from Murmansk to Norway. Poor weather foiled both attempts. In 1933, the
two tried a less dramatic approach - Gamow managed to obtain permission for himself and his
wife (who was also a physicist) to attend the Solvay Conference for physicists in Brussels. The
two attended and promptly defected. In 1934, they moved to the United States. He began
working at The George Washington University in 1934, where he published articles with Edward
Teller, Mario Schenberg and Ralph Alpher. Gamow became a naturalized American in 1940.
[edit] Big Bang nucleosynthesis
Gamow produced an important cosmogony paper with his student Ralph Alpher, which was
published as "The Origin of Chemical Elements" (Physical Review, April 1, 1948). This paper
became known as the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory. Gamow had the name of Hans Bethe listed
on the article as "H. Bethe, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York" to make a pun on the first
three letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta and gamma. Bethe had no other role in the α-β-γ
paper.
The paper outlined how the present levels of hydrogen and helium in the universe (which are
thought to make up over 99% of all matter) could be largely explained by reactions that occurred
during the "big bang". This lent theoretical support to the Big Bang theory, although it did not
explain the presence of elements heavier than helium (this was done later by Fred Hoyle).
In this paper, no estimate of the strength of the present day residual cosmic microwave
background radiation (CMB) was made. Shortly thereafter, Alpher and Robert Herman predicted
that the afterglow of the big bang would have cooled down after billions of years, filling the
universe with a radiation five degrees above absolute zero.
Gamow published another paper in the British journal Nature in 1948, in which he developed
equations for the mass and radius of a primordial galaxy (which typically contains about one
hundred billion stars, each with a mass comparable with that of the sun).
Astronomers and scientists did not make any effort to detect this background radiation at that
time, due to both a lack of interest and the immaturity of microwave observation. Consequently,
Gamow's prediction in support of the big bang was not substantiated until 1964, when Arno
Penzias and Robert Wilson made the accidental discovery for which they were awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1978. Their work determined that the universe's background radiation
was 2.7 degrees above absolute zero, just 2.3 degrees lower than Gamow's 1948 prediction.
[edit] DNA and later career
Grave of George Gamow in Green Mountain Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado, USA
After the discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson,
Gamow attempted to solve the problem of how the order of the four different kinds of bases
(adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine) in DNA chains could control the synthesis of proteins
from amino acids.[10] Crick has said[11] that Gamow's suggestions helped him in his own thinking
about the problem. As related by Crick,[12] Gamow suggested that the twenty combinations of
four DNA bases taken three at a time correspond to twenty amino acids used to form proteins.
This led Crick and Watson to enumerate the twenty amino acids which are common to most
proteins.
However the specific system proposed by Gamow (known as "Gamow's diamonds") was
incorrect, as the triplets were supposed to be overlapping (so that in the sequence GGAC (for
example), GGA could produce one amino acid and GAC another) and non-degenerate (meaning
that each amino acid would correspond to one combination of three bases - in any order). Later
protein sequencing work proved that this could not be the case; the true genetic code is nonoverlapping and degenerate, and changing the order of a combination of bases does change the
amino acid.
After 1954 Gamow was involved in the RNA Tie Club, a discussion group of leading scientists
concerned with the problem of the genetic code.
Gamow remained at George Washington University until 1954, then worked at University of
California, Berkeley (1954), and University of Colorado at Boulder (1956–1968).
On August 19, 1968, Gamow died at age 64 in Boulder, Colorado, and was buried there in Green
Mountain Cemetery. The University of Colorado at Boulder physics department tower is named
after him.
The George Gamow Tower at the University of Colorado at Boulder
[edit] Writings
Gamow was a highly successful science writer, with several of his books still in print. He
conveyed the excitement of the revolution in physics and other scientific topics of interest to the
common reader. Gamow himself prepared the illustrations for his books, which added a new
dimension to and complemented what Gamow intended to convey in the text. Wherever it was
essential, he used mathematics.
In 1956, he was awarded the Kalinga Prize by UNESCO for his work in popularizing science
with his Mr. Tompkins... series of books (1939–1967), One Two Three ... Infinity, and other
works.
Gamow was working on a textbook entitled Basic Theories in Modern Physics, with Richard
Blade, but it was not completed before he died. He wrote a book entitled My World Line: An
Informal Autobiography, which was published posthumously in 1970.