Georgiy Gamov

George Gamow, also Georgy Antonovich Gamov, an American physicist and astrophysicist, generated brilliant ideas: he explained the laws of radioactive alpha decay and pointed to the thermonuclear nature of the Sun’s and stars’ energy; he developed the theory of the hot universe, predicting the existence of microwave (relic) radiation and raising the question of the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements.

In 1922–1923 he studied at Novorossiysk University in Odessa, then at Petrograd University, where he later completed postgraduate studies. From 1928 to 1931 he held a fellowship at the universities of Göttingen, Copenhagen, and Cambridge. In 1931–1933 he worked as a senior researcher at the Physical-Technical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and as a senior radiologist at the Radium Institute in Leningrad. In 1933 he took part in the Solvay Congress in Brussels, after which he did not return to the USSR. From 1934 he lived in the United States, and until 1956 was a professor at George Washington University; from 1956 he was a professor at the University of Colorado.

Gamow’s works are devoted to quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, astrophysics, cosmology, and biology. In 1928, at the University of Göttingen, he formulated the quantum-mechanical theory of alpha decay, giving the first successful explanation of the behavior of radioactive elements. He showed that particles even with not very high energy can, with a certain probability, penetrate a potential barrier (the tunnel effect). In 1936, together with E. Teller, he established selection rules in the theory of beta decay.

Having become interested in the connection between nuclear processes and cosmology, in 1937–1940 he constructed the first consistent theory of the evolution of stars with a thermonuclear source of energy. In 1942, together with Teller, he proposed a theory of the structure of red giants. In 1946–1948 he developed a theory of the formation of chemical elements through successive neutron capture and the model of a “hot universe” — the Big Bang theory. He predicted the existence of relic radiation and estimated its temperature.

In 1954 Gamow’s interests shifted to biology. He was the first to propose