Gamow, George, 1904-1968

Dates

• Existence: 1904 - 1968

Biography

George Gamow was born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov on February 20, 1904 in Russia. He was a theoretical physicist and cosmologist – notably an early advocate and developer of Lemaître's Big Bang theory. He discovered a theoretical explanation of alpha decay via quantum tunneling, and worked on radioactive decay of the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis and Big Bang nucleosynthesis (which he collectively called nucleocosmogenesis), and molecular genetics. He defected to the United States in 1934 where he became a professor at George Washington University, a position he kept until 1954, when he became a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1956, he moved to the University of Colorado Boulder, where he remained for the rest of his career. He was also the author of many books including "The Birth and Death of the Sun" (1940), "One, Two, Three...Infinity" (1947), and "Thirty Years That Shook Physics: The Story of Quantum Theory"(1966). Gamow died in 1968.

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