George Gamow

George Gamow

George Gamow was born in Odessa, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.  He studied physics at the local university and in 1923 went to Leningrad to study with Alexander Friedmann.  Unfortunately, Friedmann became ill and died before his work was acknowledged, and Gamow was deprived of a creative teacher.  Gamov emigrated to the United States in 1934 where he continued to develop the Big Bang theory. In 1943 he was joined by a graduate student, Ralph Alpher, who had the mathematical skills needed to calculate what would happen at the subatomic level immediately after the Big Bang.