George Gamow

George Gamow, sometimes Gammoff; born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov (Георгий Антонович Гамов; 4 March 1904 – 19 August 1968) was a Soviet and American polymath, theoretical physicist and cosmologist.

He was an early advocate and developer of Lemaître's Big Bang theory.

Gamow discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay by quantum tunneling, invented the liquid drop model and 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 molecular genetics.

He was educated at the Institute of Physics and Mathematics in Odessa (1922–23) and at the University of Leningrad (1923–1929).

Gamow studied under Alexander Friedmann in Leningrad, until Friedmann's early death in 1925, which required him to change dissertation advisors.

At the university, Gamow made friends with three other students of theoretical physics, Lev Landau, Dmitri Ivanenko, and Matvey Bronshtein.

The four formed a group they called the Three Musketeers, which met to discuss and analyze the ground-breaking papers on quantum mechanics published during those years.

He later used the same phrase to describe the Alpher, Herman, and Gamow group.

Upon 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 in 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.

By 1928, Gamow in Göttingen had solved the theory of the alpha decay of a nucleus via tunnelling, with mathematical help from Nikolai Kochin.

The problem was also solved independently by Ronald W. Gurney and Edward U. Condon.

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 nuclear potential well.

Also classically, it takes an enormous amount of energy to pull apart the nucleus, an event that would not occur spontaneously.

In quantum mechanics, however, there is a probability the particle can "tunnel through" the wall of the potential well 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 Geiger–Nuttall law.

Some years later, the name Gamow factor or Gamow–Sommerfeld factor was applied to the probability of incoming nuclear particles tunnelling through the electrostatic Coulomb barrier and undergoing nuclear reactions.

Gamow worked at a number of Soviet establishments before deciding to flee the Soviet Union because of increased oppression.

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.

During the period 1931–1933, Gamow worked in the Physical Department of the Radium Institute (Leningrad) headed by.

Europe's first cyclotron was designed under the guidance and direct participation of Igor Kurchatov, Lev Mysovskii and Gamow.

In 1931, he was officially denied permission to attend a scientific conference in Italy.

Also in 1931, he married Lyubov Vokhmintseva (Любовь Вохминцева), another physicist in the Soviet Union, whom he nicknamed "Rho" after the Greek letter.

Gamow and his new wife spent much of the next two years trying to leave the Soviet Union, with or without official permission.

Niels Bohr and other friends invited Gamow to visit during this period, but Gamow could not get permission to leave.

In 1932, Gamow and Mysovskii submitted a draft design for consideration by the Academic Council of the Radium Institute, which approved it.

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.

Poor weather foiled both attempts, but they had not been noticed by the authorities.

The cyclotron was not completed until 1937.

In the early 20th century, 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.

In his middle and late career, Gamow directed much of his attention to teaching and wrote popular books on science, including One Two Three... Infinity and the Mr Tompkins series of books (1939–1967).

Some of his books remain in print more than a half-century after their original publication.

Gamow was born in Odessa, Russian Empire (now Odesa, Ukraine).

His father taught Russian language and literature in high school, and his mother taught geography and history at a school for girls.

In addition to Russian, Gamow learned to speak some French from his mother and German from a tutor.

Gamow learned English in his college years and became fluent.

Most of his early publications were in German or Russian, but he later used English for both technical papers and for the lay audience.