Date: January 23, 2010

Title: A Brief Biography Of George Gamov

Podcaster: Craig Robertson

Link: www.myfavoriteauthor.net

Description: George Gamov, one of the true giants in annals of Astronomy. Gamov was one of many in the generation of scientists working at the very beginning of our current understanding of the physical universe. He worked side by side with the likes of Bohr, Fermi, Einstein, Teller and other legends of physics.

Bio: Craig Robertson is a physician in the Sacramento, CA area, and science fiction author. In the 1970’s he studied astronomy and geophysics at UC Berkeley. In addition to his busy Internal Medicine practice, he has written several science fiction novels available on Podiobooks.com as podcasts, and as ebooks on Amazon and Barnes and Noble’s sites. His lifelong love of astronomy keeps him young at heart and continually challenges him to maintain an open mind and a sharp wit. He can be contacted at his website, www.myfavoriteauthor.net.

Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by — no one. We still need sponsors for many days in 2010, so please consider sponsoring a day or two. Just click on the “Donate” button on the lower left side of this webpage, or contact us at signup@365daysofastronomy.org.

Transcript:

A Brief Biography of George Gamov

Hello, I am Craig Robertson, Podiobook.com author of the novel Anon Time. Before becoming a medical doctor, I was an Astronomy major at the University of California Berkeley, back in the 1970’s. I have remained a lifelong fan of all things astronomical and I am hoping to share with you insights into some of the founding fathers of modern astronomy, stories which are important to keep alive. Today I’d like to let you know about the fascinating career of George Gamov, one of the true giants in annals of Astronomy.

Gamov was one of many in the generation of scientists working at the very beginning of our current understanding of the physical universe. He worked side by side with the likes of Bohr, Fermi, Einstein, Teller and other legends of physics. He had a passionate theoretical bent which he applied to whatever interested him, from nuclear decay to nucleosynthesis, and from cosmology to biology. He displayed an intellectual spirit of adventure and humor which had the potential to harm if not end an academic career, and he did so unabashedly. There was always in his life a playful and irreverent current which is never seen today. He would make up poems and lyrics about his competitors, and challenge with vigor the scientific dogmas of his day. His name has become synonymous with The Big Bang Theory and his intellectual sparing with Fred Hoyle and the Steady State proponents reached as far as the mainstream press.

Born in The Ukraine in 1904, he developed a love of sciences and a yearning for understanding early in life. When Halley’s comet came in 1910, he climbed to the roof to see it. Though not Catholic, he went to a Mass and received the Host, in order to place it in his cheek. He then ran home and studied it under his microscope, hoping to see what The Body of Christ looked like. The disappointment he recalls lead him away from organized religion. Schooled at Odessa and Leningrad, Gamov never actually received his PhD., but never looked back on that academic omission, and was swept away in the current of discovery undaunted.

His first break through scientific work in the 1920’s involved alpha particles. Radioactive decay had been observed, but no one could explain where the extreme energies needed to part the nucleus might come from. Gamov successfully used quantum theory to predict the probability of the particles tunneling out of the nuclear barrier. Later in the 1920’s, he helped with landmark work at the Bohr Institute on the theories of thermonuclear reactions and nucleosynthesis.

Due to the increasing oppression of pre-World War II Russia, Gamov and his wife defected to the West. Niels Bohr took him under his wing and helped him establish a flourishing career, and way a lifelong friend and supporter. During this time, Gamov began to combine his love of theory and for working in what he referred to as the ‘less crowded’ areas of science to explore the beginnings of the universe. Specifically, he approached cosmology from the perspective of the origins of chemical elements.

As a background, up to the 1930’s Einstein used his considerable scientific clout to maintain that the universe was static. He believed, for philosophical reasons as much as anything, that the universe was isotropic, constant and equal in every direction, equally dense and timeless. There were two early proponents of an expanding universe. Aleksander Friedman employed a pure mathematics method to show that the universe could either collapse, expand, or remain static. George Lemaitre used a more practical approach to model an expanding universe, but Gamov felt he came at it from the wrong direction. Einstein rejected their ideas out of hand, so they never received popular support or much interests. It wasn’t until 1932 when Hubble firmly established the expansion of the observable universe that Einstein was forced to concede his position.

Proceeding out of these evolutionary discussions, Gamov released an historic paper in the journal Physical Review in 1948, titled The Origins of Chemical Elements. The paper outlined that the universe had expanded from a hot singularity, applying the principles of general relativity. The correct ratios of the chemical elements was accurately predicted. Hydrogen and helium were to exist in a ratio of 3/1, correctly reflecting observations. Unfortunately, he could not account for the origins of the heavier elements. Though not specifically mentioned in this work, his collaborator Alpher and Robert Herman soon released a paper accurately predicting a current cosmic microwave background temperature of 5 degrees Kelvin.

In characteristic Gamov style, he had to add his touches of levity. He described that the singularity expanded from YLEM, by which he meant a mixture of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The word was coined from the Hebrew meaning ‘the space between Heaven and Earth’. Also, while he wrote the paper only with a former student Ralph Alpher, he released to final work as authored by them and added the name of a colleague, Hans Bethe, who had no part in the paper. Gamov did so solely because he wanted the authors initials to read alpha-beta-gamma, a pun on the first three letters in the Greek alphabet.

Gamov was ever restless intellectually, and a rare free spirit. So, drawn to theory of any variety, he became fascinated with the DNA work of Watson And Crick in the 1950’s. They had found that DNA was comprised of just four nucleotides which were responsible for all protein synthesis. Gamov examined this relationship using his theoretical and mathematical abilities, and out of nowhere proposed a structure for the DNA molecule. He envisioned a helix of three nucleosides which overlapped. The base triplets were referred to as Gamov diamonds. Though his prediction turned out to be slightly incorrect, his involvement so alarmed Crick that he rapidly put great effort into coming up with the correct base pair helical model of DNA which won them the Nobel Prize. Late in life, Gamov remarked that he found biology to be more fun than physics. He lamented that if his life had started a few decades later he would rather have become a theoretical biologist.

As his career in America cemented itself, he worked mostly at George Washington University, briefly at UC Berkeley, and was a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder till his death in 1968. True to his iconoclastic nature, he left Berkeley for Boulder somewhat on a whim. Gamov had gone to Boulder to deliver a visiting lecture. During an after party (yes even physics lectures can have after parties) some of the junior faculty asked his to become a professor there because the restless youths felt the old guard of the department were inadequate and stifling. It was on this basis that he accepted the transfer. Always the rebel himself, he proudly told the story how he stood up the King of Belgium three times for dinner, a socially unthinkable offense.

Gamov is remembered also for his popularization of the sciences. He authored a wildly successful series of Mr. Tompkins books aimed at young people. It covered not only the physical sciences, but biology as well. His book 1-2-3-infinity, sold very well, and was directed at an adult readership.

Irreverent to the end, he is said to have remarked on his death bed that, “Finally my liver is presenting the bill.” Gamov was an intellectual cowboy, and a free spirit. He was one of the last in that generation of scholars not rigidly bound to narrow pathways in one area. He made revolutionary discoveries in whatever subjects interested him at the time, and had the courage and genius to buck the academic establishment and survive. Making important contributions to human understanding will always continue, but to do so with Gamov’s vigor on his own terms is a thing of the past. A jack of all trades and a master of many is sadly an extinct species, but the memory of his brand of creative non conformity can bring a bit of hope to us all. If you have a comment or a question, please contact me at www.myfavoriteauthor.net. Thank you for your time and kind attention.

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Astrosphere New Media Association. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. Until tomorrow…goodbye.