George Gamow

Russian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist (1904-1968) · United States · On the map · Scientists · Died at 64

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He bet the universe began with a bang - then worked backward through the math to prove it, predicting the faint microwave hiss still glowing from creation's first minutes. Gamow turned quantum tunneling into an explanation for how atoms fall apart and sketched the first model of the nucleus as a jittery liquid drop.

George Gamow is read about 278 times a day, in 58 languages.

A typical day, 30 days to 13 November 2026

The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 400 days, one point a day.

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A life in dates

1968Died19 August 1968“I feel that matter has properties which physics tells you.”In their words25 April 1968"Interview with George Gamow", by Charles Weiner at Professor Gamow's home in Boulder, ColoradoRead the whole statement

1966“It is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment; it breaks whenever they touch it.”In their wordsThirty Years That Shook Physics : The Story of Quantum Theory (1966), p. 64Read the whole statement

1956Kalinga PrizeAward1952“It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!”In their wordsp. 139Read the whole statement

1947“There was a young fellow from Trinity, Who took the square root of infinity. But the number of digits, Gave him the fidgets; He dropped Math and took up Divinity.”In their wordsOne, Two, Three... Infinity (1947)Read the whole statement

1939“It was a bank holiday, and Mr Tompkins, the little clerk of a big city bank, slept late and had a leisurely breakfast.”In their wordsMr. Tompkins in Wonderland. (1939) First linesRead the whole statement

1904Born4 March 1904

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Solvay1933Large

Bragg lab1 1930 (cropped)

In their own words 1

George Gamow

One statement

So I am just sitting and waiting, listening, and if something exciting comes, I just jump in.
About the origin of his interest in biology in an "Interview with George Gamow", by Charles Weiner at Professor Gamow's home in Boulder,, Own words

Wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0

Awards

Kalinga Prize1956

Fellow of the American Physical Society

About this person

Born Georgiy Antonovich Gamov in the Soviet Union on March 4, 1904, Gamow came up as a theoretical physicist who worked at the edge of the very small and the very large. Early on he explained alpha decay through quantum tunneling and invented the liquid drop model - the first mathematical blueprint of the atomic nucleus. He became an early champion of Georges Lemaître's Big Bang theory, developing it into a framework that stretched from radioactive decay through star formation to what he called nucleocosmogenesis: the forging of elements in stars and in the universe's first moments. He predicted the cosmic microwave background before anyone had instruments to find it, and his thinking touched molecular genetics. Later he turned to teaching and popular science, writing One Two Three... Infinity and the Mr Tompkins series - books that stayed in print for decades. He died August 19, 1968; the University of Colorado at Boulder now gives memorial lectures in his name.

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United States