About George Gamow
George Gamow (sometimes Gammoff; born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov; Russian: Гео́ргий Анто́нович Га́мов; March 4 [O.S. February 20] 1904 – August 19, 1968) was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He was an early advocate and developer of Georges Lemaître's Big Bang theory. Gamow discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay by quantum tunneling, invented the liquid drop model (the first mathematical model of the atomic nucleus), worked on radioactive decay, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (which he collectively called nucleocosmogenesis), and predicted the existence of the cosmic microwave background radiation and molecular genetics. In his middle and late career, Gamow directed much of his attention to teaching and wrote popular science, including One Two Three... Infinity and the Mr Tompkins series. Some of his books remain in print more than a half-century after their original publication. The George Gamow Memorial Lectures at the University of Colorado at Boulder are given in his honor. In 1931, Gamow was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR at age 28 – one of the youngest in its history. Europe's first cyclotron was designed under the guidance and direct participation of Igor Kurchatov, Lev Mysovskii and Gamow. Gamow learned English in his college years and became fluent. Gamow later said that his first two attempts to defect with his wife were in 1932 and involved trying to kayak: first a planned 250-kilometer paddle over the Black Sea to Turkey, and another attempt from Murmansk to Norway.
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