George Gamow was a Russian theoretical physicist and cosmologist. He may be best known for his contributions to George Lemaitre’s theory of the Big Bang. Gamow also used the theory of quantum tunneling to explain alpha decay, which was another thing he did for science. He also worked on molecular genetics and cosmology questions, such as stellar nucleosynthesis, radioactive decay, the liquid drop model, and star formation. Gamow did some of his most important work in the scientific community, but he also taught and wrote for a wider audience. About halfway through his career, he began to focus more and more on teaching. Gamow worked as a teacher and a researcher at a number of colleges and universities in the United States and Europe. He worked at the University of Gottingen, the Niels Bohr Institute, the Cavendish Laboratory, George Washington University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He also wrote a number of popular science books. Several of Gamow’s popular science books, which he wrote between 1939 and 1967, were part of a long-running series. Some of his popular science books are still in print 50 years after they were first published. This is rare for science writing, whether it’s popular or technical.
Early years and childhood
Gamow was born in Odessa, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time, on March 4, 1904. His parents were Russian and Ukrainian (and currently Ukraine).
Gamow’s parents were both teachers. His father taught Russian language and literature at a local high school, and his mother taught history and geography at a school for girls.
Gamow learned his native language, Russian, as well as French and German as a child. By the time he was in his late teens, he was fluent in English, which was his fourth language.
Gamow moved from Odessa to Leningrad, which is now St. Petersburg, in 1923. There, he went to school at the “University of Leningrad.”
George Gamow’s Career
Gamow finished his studies at the “University of Leningrad” in 1929. He had mostly worked with Alexander Friedmann, but after Friedmann died, Gamow had to find a new thesis advisor.
Gamow became friends with Lev Landau, Dmitri Ivanenko, and Matvey Bronshtein when he was in college. They were all studying theoretical physics. The four people called themselves the “Three Musketeers” as a group.
Gamow moved to Gottingen, Germany, after he graduated from college. There, he did research on quantum theory, focusing on the nucleus of an atom.
Gamow worked at the “Theoretical Physics Institute” at the “University of Copenhagen” from 1928 to 1931. He took a short break from the Institute to work with Ernest Rutherford at the “Cavendish Laboratory” at “Cambridge University.”
Gamow proposed a solution to the theory of alpha decay in 1928 that was based on quantum tunneling. He and Nikolai Kochin worked on this explanation.
Gamow first came up with the “liquid drop” model of atomic nuclei when he worked at the University of Copenhagen and the Cavendish Laboratory.
Gamow worked at the “Radium Institute” in St. Petersburg (then called Leningrad) from 1931 to 1933. He worked with Lev Mysovskii and Igor Kurchatov to make the first cyclotron in Europe.
Gamow was asked to go to the “7th Solvay Conference” in Brussels in 1933, so he and his wife went there. Other European physicists, like Marie Curie, helped the couple, so they were able to stay in the city longer.
In 1934, he got a job as a professor at George Washington University and moved to the United States with his wife.
In 1948, he and Ralph Alpher, a cosmologist who had been one of his students, wrote a paper that changed the Big Bang theory.
In the 1950s, after Francis Crick and James Watson found out how DNA is put together, George focused on biochemistry and genetics in his work.
He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1954 to 1956.
From 1956 until his death, this famous theoretical physicist taught at the “University of Colorado Boulder,” focusing mainly on teaching and writing about science.
His Works of note
Gamow wrote “One, Two, Three,… Infinity” in 1947. It is an introduction to a wide range of scientific topics, from math to biology, and is still considered by many to be the best popular science book ever written.
Between 1940 and 1967, Gamow wrote five popular science books about a character named “C.G.H. Tompkins.” The books’ topics ranged from the structure of atoms to the biology of humans.
In 1948, Gamow and his student Ralph Alpher wrote a paper called “The Origin of Chemical Elements.” In it, they explained how the amount of hydrogen and helium in the universe today could be explained by the Big Bang theory.
Awards & Achievements
At the age of 28, the famous cosmologist was chosen to join the USSR’s “Academy of Sciences.” This made him one of the youngest people to join the group in its history.
In 1956, UNESCO gave him the “Kalinga Prize” for helping to explain science to a wide audience through his “Mr. Tompkins” series of books.
Personal History and Legacies
Gamov was not allowed to go to a scientific conference in Italy in 1931. This was one of a number of things that happened under the Soviet Union that made this cosmologist want to leave and go somewhere else.
In 1931, he got married to another physicist who worked in the Soviet Union. Her name was Lyubov Vokhmintseva.
Igor Gamow was born to the couple in 1935. At the time, the well-known physicist and his wife were living in the United States, where Igor became a citizen.
This famous astrophysicist died on August 19, 1968, in Colorado. He had been sick for a long time and had several surgeries. The “Green Mountain Cemetery” is where he was laid to rest.
Now, the “Gamow Factor” or “Gamow-Sommerfeld Factor” refers to the chance that a nuclear particle will tunnel through the Coulomb barrier and cause a nuclear reaction.
Russell Stannard updated Gamow’s popular science book “The New World of Mr. Tompkins” in 1999. He added key scientific advances that had happened since Gamow’s death to Gamow’s books, making them more complete.
Estimated Net worth
George Gamow’s estimated net worth is $5 million, and his main sources of income are cosmologist, university teacher, inventor, writer, biochemist, nuclear scientist, physicist, and astrophysicist. We don’t have enough information on George Gamow’s cars or his way of life.
Trivia
This famous scientist called his first wife, Vokhmintseva, “rho,” which comes from the Greek letter of the same name.
The famous theoretical physicist said that he tried to leave the Soviet Union twice by kayak in 1932.