George Gamow

George Gamow (1904 to 1968) was a Soviet and American theoretical physicist and cosmologist, born Georgiy Gamov in Odessa. He studied at Leningrad under Alexander Friedmann, worked on quantum theory in Göttingen, and spent 1928 to 1931 at the Theoretical Physics Institute in Copenhagen. He explained alpha decay as quantum tunneling, proposed the liquid drop model of the atomic nucleus, and worked on stellar structure, stellar nucleosynthesis and the nucleosynthesis of the early universe, which he called nucleocosmogenesis. He was an early developer of the Big Bang theory of Georges Lemaître and predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation. In later life he turned to teaching and popular writing, and books such as One Two Three... Infinity and the Mr Tompkins series are still in print. The University of Colorado at Boulder holds a memorial lecture series in his name.