George Gamow Research Articles

The Big Bang versus the Steady State: Gamow, Hoyle and Ryle, rivals in cosmology

Abstract This account of the controversy concerning the Big Bang and Steady State theories contrasts the different approaches to science of George Gamow, Fred Hoyle and Martin Ryle. Einstein’s general relativity offered theoretical physicists an indispensable tool kit for making mathematical models of the Universe. Georges Lemaître made an astonishing impact in 1927 with his proposal that the expanding Universe started from a decaying super-radioactive primeval atom. Gamow refined Lemaître’s model by proposing that primordial nucleosynthesis in the early expanding Universe had formed the chemical elements. Hoyle, who by contrast had discovered the conditions under which stellar nucleosynthesis could occur via the evolution and explosion of massive stars, publicly dismissed Gamow’s cosmology as an unnecessary speculation. Hoyle, Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold proposed the alternative steady state theory in 1948. In 1950 Ryle constructed the first radio telescope with the sensitivity to discriminate between the rival models of the Universe. Steady state cosmology survived Ryle’s first surveys of cosmic radio sources because Ryle’s data was inadequate. However results from the much improved Third and Fourth Cambridge Surveys demonstrated that our Universe had evolved. The Ryle-Hoyle debates became intensely passionate and personal. In 1965 the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation settled the argument in favour of the Lemaître Big Bang evolving Universe.

Stern, Gamow, and the Shabbat Elevator Effect

Abstract In addition to being known for their other work, physicists George Gamow and Marvin Stern also published an analysis of an intriguing problem regarding their perception that although both worked on different floors, it seemed that the first elevator to arrive on their respective floors was traveling in the opposite direction of their destination. In this manuscript, a fictitious conversation occurs between the two in regards to the probability of the elevator stopping on every floor (which they term the Shabbat Effect). One claims that it is the number of elevator occupants that predominates whereas the other claims it is the number of floors in the building that predominates in giving rise to this effect. Equations for estimating the probability of the Shabbat Effect are developed and analyzed. The resulting equations show that the relationship between the number of elevator occupants and floors is surprisingly complicated. Consequently, no general rule can be given for whether the probability of the Shabbat Effect increases or decreases for an arbitrary change in the number of occupants and floors. However, it discovered that for similar changes in the number of occupants and floors, it is the number of floors that predominates in determining the probability of the elevator stopping on every floor.

Historicizing a Dream of Complete Science.

This paper attempts an historical analysis of a dream of the physicist George Gamow recorded shortly before his death in 1968. The dream is contextualized through Gamow's extended scientific work and popular scientific efforts, and in light of enduring preoccupations with the notion of a complete science. The analysis extends to an examination of the relationship of the dream to dreaming practices and deliberations apart from Gamow's, as evident in the relationship and collaboration between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and C. G. Jung.

An Application of Residue Number System (RNS) to Molecular Biology

George Gamow introduced the mathematical angle that led to a better understanding of the number of possible codons of the genetic code. This builds a harmonious relationship between mathematics and molecular biology. Although very unsuccessful in his quest to provide the representation of the genetic code, with the diamond code, but his mathematical postulation of the genetic code being a 4 by 4 by 4 codon representation of 64 codons was correct. Bioinformatics ascribe digits to nitrogenous bases, binary digits, but there has been proponents for a quaternary number system representation of the genetic code since the code is made of the four (4) nitrogenous bases. The unique representation of Gamow offers the opportunity to represent the genetic code as a 3-moduli set RNS. This sets up further considerations of the genetic code (code of life) in the field of Residue Number System (RNS). AnRNS-Genetic code has the potential of opening new extraordinary vistas of potential progress in contemporary molecular biology. This work explores the feasibility of RNS as a number system of choice for generating the genetic code and further respond to the quest for a quaternary number system for the genetic code.

Recollections of logicians, mathematicians and philosophers

For John Crossley John Crossley played a major role in my becoming a mathematical logician. But before meeting him I had other aspirations. In my youth, I dreamt of becoming a theoretical physicist, and Einstein, George Gamow and Fred Hoyle headed my list of scientific heroes. I was initially accepted at Oxford to study physics, but by the time I got there my interest had shifted to mathematics. This was in no small part due to the influence of my earliest mentor, the Cambridge mathematician and astronomer E. H. Linfoot, about whom I have written elsewhere ([1]). Linfoot had an extensive mathematical library. It included a copy of John Kelley’s pedagogic masterpiece General Topology, which he was kind enough to lend me. Kelley’s book was my introduction to the elegant abstractions of 20th century mathematics, which supplanted the tortuous intricacies of the traditional mathematical analysis I had wrestled with up to then. From Kelley’s book I learned, not just about general topology, but about set theory and the concept—which I found bewitching—of a Boolean algebra. Many years later I had the good fortune to meet Kelley, who proved to be as engaging in person as he was as an author.

Short History of Nuclear Decays Including Nuclear Fission

A short history of the different kinds of nuclear decay modes (α decay, β decay, γ decay, induced fission, spontaneous fission, ternary and multi-cluster fission, fissioning shape isomers, and cluster radioactivities) is presented below, showing how the important research activities at the end of 19th century and the beginning of the 20th one, lead to the discovery of atomic nucleus by Ernest Rutherford in 1911. We shall start with X-rays—a precursor of all these phenomena. The first observation of alpha-, beta-, and gamma radiations was made by Antoine Henri Becquerel in 1896, who observed that beta-rays are deviated by a magnetic field. Marie and Pierre Curie coined the name radioactivity after they produced two new elements: polonium and radium. Alpha particles were first described in the investigations of radioactivity by Ernest Rutherford in 1899, and by 1907 they were identified as He2+ ions. In 1928, George Gamow had solved the theory of alpha decay via tunneling through a potential barrier. The alpha particle is trapped in a potential well by the nucleus. According to the principles of quantum mechanics, it has a small probability of tunneling through the barrier and escape from the nucleus. Gamow solved a model potential for the nucleus and derived, from first principles, a relationship between the half-life of the decay, and the energy of the emission, which had been previously discovered empirically, and was known as the Geiger-Nuttall law.

THE BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE AS AN EPISTEMOLOGICAL FRONTIER- LEMAÎTRE TO GAMOW

It was in 1922, when Alexandre Friedmann proposed some models for cosmic evolution, that modern cosmology faced for the first time in a scientific way the problem of the origin of the universe. It was the inaugural step of the big bang cosmology (usually known as the Big Bang Theory), to which several important cosmologists contributed over the following decades. Among these cosmologists, there were two who played a special role: Georges Lemaître, who proposed the primeval atom theory, and George Gamow, who later assumed the hot and dense primordial state of the universe which contemporary cosmology continues to admit. In this paper, I present and compare the perspectives of these two great cosmologists towards the idea of the beginning of the universe as an epistemological frontier, that is, as an unsurpassable limit to the physical knowledge of the universe, namely with regard to an explanation of what caused this beginning and how the primordial universe had come into existence. Both cosmologists assumed that the beginning of our universe is located before everything that physics can achieve, but we can identify one important difference: according to Lemaître, the beginning of the universe is located before space and time, and we can admit that is an epistemological beginning and also an ontological beginning; according to Gamow, the beginning of our universe may have been the result of a preexistent cosmological state of the universe which is just inaccessible to physics, and therefore is not an ontological but just an epistemological beginning.

Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate

Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate

Before the Big Bang became scientific dogma Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate Paul Halpern Basic Books, 2021. 304 pp.

A dual biography traces the entangled efforts of a pair of contentious cosmologists

Funny Origins of the Big Bang Theory

Popularization of science typically follows the lead of scientific research, conveying to lay audiences ideas and discoveries initially published in professional scientific literature and vetted by the expert community. The physicist George Gamow (1904–1968) did not respect this tradition, but promoted some of his most unorthodox scientific hypotheses as funny stories in his popular writings for non-specialists and teenagers, sometimes years before he dared to present them to the purview of academic peers in papers submitted to specialized research journals. Gamow’s proposal of the Big Bang cosmology—the theory that our universe started out in an explosive manner from a superhot and superdense state with thermonuclear reactions forming matter—was discussed by him initially in a series of non-serious articles and books, starting in 1938. Historians of cosmology recognize Gamow’s crucial contribution to the development of the Big Bang theory on the grounds of his subsequent professional publications but have not paid sufficient attention to his popular science writings and their role in changing our conception of the universe.

Why Big Bang is so Accepted and Popular: Some Contributions of a Thematic Analysis

Some important and decisive observations allowed a widespread and almost unquestionable acceptance of the big bang cosmology, but we can admit and search other factors that have contributed and continue to contribute to the enormous acceptance and great popularity of this cosmological conception, not only inside but also outside of cosmology and even in numerous no scientific contexts. To find some of those factors, a case study was undertaken based on thematic analysis, an analytical tool which is based on the idea that the scientific activity, in addition to a theoretical and an experimental dimensions, has a third dimension with psychological and cultural elements called themata that strongly influence the construction of scientific theories and also their acceptance or rejection. This case study focused on the most important founding texts of big bang cosmology, namely articles and books of Alexandre Friedmann, Georges Lemaitre, and George Gamow, covering three decades of important developments (1922–1952), and the founding texts of its great rival, the steady-state cosmology. This article presents a summary of the main results of this case study, which allowed to identify several themata with a very important role in the big bang cosmology: differentiation and unification (methodological themata); unity, creation, change, evolution, constancy (of mass/energy), simplicity, life cycle, circularity, and disorder (conceptual themata). All these themata form a methodological and conceptual matrix—with a triple dimension: historical, transversal/cultural, and psychological—that can help explain the acceptance and popularity of the big bang cosmology within and beyond its disciplinary boundaries.

Captain Einstein: A VR experience of relativity

Captain Einstein is a virtual reality (VR) movie that takes you on a boat trip in a world with a slow speed of light. This allows for a direct experience of the theory of special relativity, much in the same spirit as in the Mr. Tompkins adventure by George Gamow (1939). In this paper, we go through the different relativistic effects (e.g., length contraction, time dilation, Doppler shift, light aberration) that show up during the boat trip, and we explain how these effects were implemented in the 360° video production process. We also provide exercise questions that can be used-in combination with the VR movie-to gain insight and sharpen the intuition on the basic concepts of special relativity.

Cosmological lithium problem

<p indent=0mm>Firstly proposed in 1946 by George Gamow, the hot big bang theory is now the most widely accepted cosmological model of the Universe, where the Universe expanded from a very high-density state dominated by radiation. The theory has been vindicated by the observation of the cosmic microwave background, our emerging knowledge of the large-scale structure of the Universe, and the rough consistency between calculations and observations of primordial abundances of the lightest elements in nature: Hydrogen, helium, and lithium. Primordial big-bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) began when the Universe was <sc>3 minutes</sc> old and ended less than half an hour later when nuclear reactions were quenched by the low temperature (about <sc>10⁹ K,</sc> i.e., ~1 GK, or <italic>kT</italic><sc>~100 keV)</sc> and density conditions in the expanding Universe. Only the lightest nuclides (²H, ³He, ⁴He, and ⁷Li) were synthesized in appreciable quantities through BBN, and these relics provide us a unique window on the early Universe. Constrained by the baryon density determined by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) and PLANCK satellites, the primordial abundances of ²H (referred to as D hereafter) and ⁴He inferred from observational data are in good general agreement with predictions; however, the standard BBN theory overestimates the primordial ⁷Li abundance by about a factor of three to four. This significant deviation is the so-called “cosmological lithium problem.” Over about two decades, many attempts to resolve this discrepancy using conventional nuclear physics have been unsuccessful yet. The possible solutions to this unresolved problem have been suggested, which can be mainly categorized into three groups, according to which part of the preceding analysis is called into question: (1) Astrophysical solutions revise the measured primordial lithium abundance; (2) solutions beyond the standard model invoke new particle physics or nonstandard cosmological physics; (3) nuclear physics solutions alter the reaction flow into and out of mass-7. This paper systematically reviews three major aspects of this long-pending cosmological lithium problem. It includes the scientific background, motivation, possible solutions and attempts made in the past. Here, we mainly focus on the nuclear physics solutions, which might solve this problem in an elegant way. In this review, the goals of different research directions are summarized and evaluated, and the promising direction is guided for future investigations.

Gamow’s cyclist: a new look at relativistic measurements for a binocular observer

The visualization of objects moving at relativistic speeds has been a popular topic of study since Special Relativity's inception. While the standard exposition of the theory describes certain shape-changing effects, such as the Lorentz-contraction, it makes no mention of how an extended object would appear in a snapshot or how apparent distortions could be used for measurement. Previous work on the subject has derived the apparent form of an object, often making mention of George Gamow's relativistic cyclist thought experiment. Here, a rigorous re-analysis of the cyclist, this time in three dimensions, is undertaken for a binocular observer, accounting for both the distortion in apparent position and the relativistic colour and intensity shifts undergone by a fast-moving object. A methodology for analysing binocular relativistic data is then introduced, allowing the fitting of experimental readings of an object's apparent position to determine the distance to the object and its velocity. This method is then applied to the simulation of Gamow's cyclist, producing self-consistent results.

History of development of the biological microworld

The history of modern biology may be considered to begin with the penetration of scientists to biological mini-world, formed by microorganisms, cells and sub-cellular entities. The main problem to be solved was the nature of biological (genetic) heredity. In the middle of the 19th century a conception was put forward about presence in living organisms of hereditary factors, later referred as genes, whose nature for a long period remained unknown. A significant progress was achieved with elaboration of the chromosomal theory of heredity based on the presence in cell nuclei of sub-cellular structures – chromosomes. In further search of hereditary agents the plausible candidate seemed to be a polymer chemically identified as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). But no fantasy was enough to establish any connection of DNA with phenotypical features of living organisms. In 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick in the process of construction of space model of DNA molecule succeeded to reveal a mechanism of copying non-regular sequences of four heterocyclic bases present as one per monomer in DNA. It was suggested that these sequences might be recognized as a hereditary information. But the real essence of heredity happens to be found not so in copying as in coding. This revolutionary idea was soon (in 1954) put forward by a physicist George Gamow who suggested that a sequence of bases in DNA is a genetic text and that living cells possess a genetic code which in fact is a mechanism of transformation of sequences of triplets of DNA monomers (the “letters” of genetic text) to amino acid sequences of a multitude of various proteins which are the main functional molecules of the living nature. Now a plenty of genetic texts were elucidated which made it possible for researchers to achieve a new level of knowledge about living nature.

Cosmology’s early days

After George Gamow first proposed the idea of a hot Big Bang in 1948, it took 15 years for the burgeoning cosmology community to recognize his contribution for what it was.

Improved Numerical Generalization of the Bethe-Weizsäcker Mass Formula for Prediction the Isotope Nuclear Mass, the Mass Excess Including of Artificial Elements 119 and 120

George Gamow’s liquid drop model of the nucleus can account for most of the terms in the formula and gives rough estimates for the values of the coefficients. Its semi-numerical equation was first formulated in 1935 by Weizsäcker and in 1936 Bethe [1, 2], and although refinements have been made to the coefficients over the years, the structure of the formula remains the same today. Their formula gives a good approximation for atomic masses and several other effects, but does not explain the appearance of magic numbers of protons and neutrons, and the extra binding-energy and measure of stability that are associated with these numbers of nucleons. Mavrodiev and Deliyergiyev [3] formalized the nuclear mass problem in the inverse problem framework. This approach allowed them to infer the underlying model parameters from experimental observation, rather than to predict the observations from the model parameters. They formulated the inverse problem for the numerically generalized semi-empirical mass formula of Bethe and von Weizsäcker going step-by-step through the AME2012 [4] nuclear database. The resulting parameterization described the measured nuclear masses of 2564 isotopes with a maximal deviation of less than 2.6 MeV, starting from the number of protons and number of neutrons equal to 1. The unknown functions in the generalized mass formula was discovered in a step-by-step way using the modified procedure realized in the algorithms developed by Aleksandrov [5-7] to solve nonlinear systems of equations via the Gauss-Newton method. In the presented herein article we describe a further development of the obtained by [3] formula by including additional factors,- magic numbers of protons, neutrons and electrons. This inclusion is based the well-known experimental data on the chemically induced polarization of nuclei and the effect of such this polarization on the rate of isotope decay. It allowed taking into account resonant interaction of the spins of nuclei and electron shells. As a result the maximal deviation from the measured nuclear masses of less than 1.9 MeV was reached. This improvement allowed prediction of the nuclear characteristics of the artificial elements 119 and 120.

Martynas Yčas: The "Archivist" of the RNA Tie Club.

Between about 1951 and the early 1960s, the basic structure of molecular biology was revealed. Central to our understanding was the unraveling of the various roles of RNA, culminating in the identification of messenger RNA (mRNA) and the deciphering of the genetic code. We know a great deal about the role of Brenner, Crick, Jacob, and Nirenberg in these discoveries, but many others played important supporting parts. One of these is a little-known scientist, Martynas Yčas, who appears in histories, generally without explanation, as the "archivist of the RNA Tie Club." Yčas was born in Lithuania. His father helped write the Lithuanian Constitution in 1919. He studied Roman Law and served in the Lithuanian army before escaping from the Russians in 1940. The records of correspondence of Yčas with the physicist George Gamow and with Francis Crick throw some light on the genesis of our understanding of the role of mRNA. The story of the "RNA Tie Club" illustrates the difficulty in assigning credit for important discoveries and underscores the importance of a free exchange of information, even (or especially) among competitors.

Vera Cooper Rubin

Vera Cooper Rubin

Alliance to penetrate mysteries of the Earth

Muography and geoneutrinos, as applied to the investigation of Earth science topics, have developed during nearly the same timeframe. The idea of muography was first proposed in 1955 by E.P. George, a physicist who attempted to measure the areal density of the rock overburden of a tunnel underneath the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme in Australia. Thirteen years later, L. Alvarez first performed mugraphy in order to map out the internal structure of the Chephren’s pyramid. With regard to geoneutrinos, George Gamow gave the first suggestion in a letter to F. Reines in 1953, two years prior to E.P. George’s experiment. Enthusiastic about the idea in this letter, thirteen years later G. Eder discussed the potential of the “remarkable abundance of radioactive elements within the Earth”. In the first decade of the 21st century, both the first muographic image of a volcano and the first measurement of geo-neutrinos respectively took place in 2006 and 2005. By encouraging the synergy of expertise in Earth science and particle physics, these new methods of studying previously invisible phenomenon within the Earth are continuing to improve as tools to solve Earth science challenges.