Gamow, George (Georgiy Antonovich)

George (Georgiy Antonovich) Gamow (4.03.1904-20.08.1968) was an American theoretical physicist and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1953). He was born in Odessa. He graduated from Leningrad University (1926), and in 1931—33 he worked at the Leningrad Physico-Technical Institute. From 1934 he lived in the USA. In 1934-56 he was professor at George Washington University, and from 1956 at the University of Colorado. His research concerned quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, astrophysics, cosmology, biology and the history of physics. Independently of R. Gurney and E. Condon he applied quantum mechanics in 1928 to the explanation of alpha decay, showing that particles even without a very large energy can pass through a potential barrier with a certain probability, and he gave a model of a rectangular potential well (1928). The idea of the “tunnel effect” arose as a result. He formulated the idea of energy levels in the nucleus and showed that protons are the more effective “nuclear projectiles”. Together with E. Teller he established selection rules in the theory of beta decay in 1936. He achieved considerable success in astrophysics and cosmology. He made wide use of nuclear physics for the interpretation of stellar evolution. He was the first to begin calculating models of stars with thermonuclear sources of energy; he studied the evolutionary tracks of stars, proposed a model of the envelope of a red giant in 1942, and studied the role of neutrinos in the outbursts of novae and supernovae. In 1946—48 he developed a theory of the formation of the chemical elements by successive neutron capture and the model of the “hot Universe”, within which he predicted the cosmic microwave background radiation and estimated (1956) its temperature at 6 K. This model was confirmed in 1965 by the experimental discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation. He proposed a mechanism of stellar collapse. The first clear statement of the problem of the genetic code belongs to Gamow. He is the author of many popular-science books (“The Creation of the Universe”, “A Star Called the Sun”, “Gravity”, “Quantum Mechanics”, “Biography of Physics” and others).