biography
| name: |
Gamow, George
|
| |
originally Georgy Antonovich Gamov
|
pronunciation:
[gamov]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1904–68)
|
| biography:
| Physicist, born in Odessa, S Ukraine. He studied at Leningrad University, where later he was professor of physics (1931–4). He did research at Göttingen, developing a quantum theory for radioactivity, then moved to the USA as professor of physics at George Washington University (1934–55) and at Colorado (1956–68). In 1948, with Ralph Alpher, he developed the ‘big bang’ theory of the origin of the universe. In molecular biology he hypothesized that patterns within DNA chains formed a genetic code, a proposal shown by the mid-1950s to be correct. He was also a writer, and received acclaim as a popularizer of science, beginning with Mr Tomkins in Wonderland (1936). |
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