George Gamow escaped the Soviet Union with his wife and became a professor of physics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Not only one of the Twentieth Century’s best physicists, Gamow was a tremendous wit.
In 1948, he published a paper that would eventually prove the “Big Bang,” the theory that the universe began with a moment of tremendous energy. Gamow the practical joker published using physicist Hans Bethe’s name. The paper, co-written by Gamow, Ralph Alpher and another author, was published under the names “Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow,” for the first three letters of the Greek alphabet, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.
Gamow wrote that the initial moment or Big Bang must have created radiation that would still be visible today. That background radiation was confirmed by George Smoot and his Berkeley team. Estimates vary, but most scientists believe the universe is between 12 billion and 17 billion lights years old. Another leading theory of the universe is the steady state theory, but most scientists reject it.
Gamow had studied the concept of an initial singularity for two decades. While in Russia he studied with Alexander Friedmann, whose theories were consistent with Belgian physicist George Lemaitre. Both agreed that the universe began with an initial singularity.
Beyond the leading paper on Big Bang Theory, Gamow published a series of popular science books with the lead character, Mr. Tompkins. He also wrote “Gravity.”
Gamow had his troubles. He tried to escape the Soviet Union with his wife in a kayak. Bad weather forced them to return. Eventually, he escaped through Europe in 1933 after representing the Soviet Union at a physics conference. He came to the United States with his wife to attend a physics conference in Michigan in 1934.
After a successful career at George Washington University, Gamow joined The University of Colorado at Boulder in 1956. He taught there until he passed in 1968.
SOURCES
American Institute of Physics, Ideas of Cosmology, Big Bang or Steady State
Professor E. Harper, Getting a Bang out of Gamow, Physics at The George Washington University