Talk:George Gamow/Archive 1

1...2...3... Infinity!
I'll pop a bit of a overview of the book Gamow wrote that did more for my perspective of science than any other. Jdos2 21:45, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Highly regarded by Soviets?
In Simon Singh's Big Bang book he says that communist party dogma forced the soviet scientific establishment to discredit the Big Bang theory (imprisoning and even executing people like Nikolai Kozyrev, Vsevolod Frederiks and Matvei Bronstein) and that Gamow was once described as an "Americanised apostate" that "advances new theories only for the sake of sensation". Is Singh off base or is this article just wrong about Gamow being highly regarded in the USSR? TastyCakes 21:18, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Good question. I would like to know also.  Hope someone can track this down. --Blainster 09:51, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
 * As I understand, there was a strong media campaign against the Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Big Bang theory, etc. as contradictory to the Dialectic Marxism in 1946-1947. Similar campaigns led to the mass arrests of scientists involved in Genetics and Cybernetics. That time the campaign was abruptly closed, the legend tells that Lavrenty Beria told Stalin that the Idealist physics produces nuclear weapons and the Marxist one does not. So if Stalin expects to get nukes he should ask the Marxists to leave the physics alone. Indeed quite a few Marxists went the way they planned for physicists. The were keeping the physics alone until the perestroika time. abakharev 11:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

More info needed
We could have a little bit more about, how he got to the US. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.98.75.217 (talk) 16:05, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with his DNA theory?
Quote from the article (as of 2 Feb 2008) - my own italics:

"After the discovery of the structure of DNA, Gamow made a major contribution to the problem of how the order of the four different kinds of bases (adenine, cytosine, thymine and guanine) in DNA chains could control the synthesis of proteins from amino acids.[1] He proposed that short sequences of the bases could form a "code" where each sequence specified one of the twenty amino acids. Although this idea did not turn out to be correct....."

Am I missing something here? I thought that WAS how the four different bases controlled protein synthesis. How is it not correct? Drjamesaustin (talk) 08:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

This is indeed the correct principle of the genetic code, but it is not a correct statement of Gamow's idea. In Crick's memoir "What Mad Pursuit" (Basic Books 1998), he explains (p.96-97) that Gamow and Ycas suggested a "combination code" in which the order of the bases did not matter, only its combination of bases. For example, AUG and AGU would correspond to the same amino acid, which was later shown to be incorrect. I am now considering how to modify the article to explain this and other points about Gamow's ideas from Crick's book. Dirac66 (talk) 02:38, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

RNA Tie Club
Gamow was instrumental in starting the RNA Tie Club in 1954. This club consumed quite a bit of his time and helped him with many personal and scientific connections... Shouldn't it be mentioned in this article? --Ojganesh (talk) 20:50, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, I have now added a line and included a link to the more detailed article. Dirac66 (talk) 22:10, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Death
Did he die of an illness related to smoking?Lestrade (talk) 01:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)Lestrade

The (5th) external link leads to a Biographic sketch at Norskfysikk (Norway) which says "His habit of drinking alcohol to excess seems ultimately to have led to his early death at the age of 64." Dirac66 (talk) 02:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Humorous Research Papers
Somebody submitted the following fragmental reference, which was summarily deleted by another editor (I won't name either party). But I think the addition was well-intentioned, even if the reference cited appears to be useless. I do vaguely recall reading that Gamow once submitted a paper more or less as described. Gamow was well known for his odd sense of humor in submitting research papers, notably his famous Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper.

Anyway, I'm preserving the fragment here, in case the submitter (or anybody else) wants to document it better for inclusion in the article. Remember, don't bite the newbies!

"Ylem a joke, proving he had a true self distant humour: Gamow produced a spoof paper purporting to distinguish how the Coriolis force affected the chewing of cud by cows in the Northern Hemisphere and Southern. Source: www.springerlink.com/index/WJ73164K51768020.html"

Summary: The above fragment is not ready for inclusion, but may contain information worth developing. Reify-tech (talk) 05:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Watson a student of Gamow?
I am puzzled by the statement added today that "One of Gamow's students, and later a colleague was Nobel prize winner James D. Watson, co-discoverer of DNA". The two biographies indicate that they were never at the same institution, so my question is when and where was Watson a student of Gamow, and when and where was he a colleague? Could this perhaps be a reference to the informal RNA Tie Club? Dirac66 (talk) 16:59, 14 May 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for pointing this out. I read somewhere that this was the case, but have not been able to corroborate it, in spite of searching.  I think you may be right in surmising a confused reference to the RNA Tie Club.  Therefore, I have removed the claim that Watson was a student of Gamow. Reify-tech (talk) 19:26, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Attempt to defect by paddling a kayak 250 km??
What is the source for the section about his defection? I am wondering about the original source of the following paragraph:
 * Gamow's first two attempts to defect with his wife were in 1932 and involved trying to kayak: first a 250-kilometer paddle over the Black Sea to Turkey, and another attempt from Murmansk to Norway. Poor weather foiled both attempts, but they had not been noticed by the authorities.

If these attempts "had not been noticed by the authorities", then the original source could only be Gamow himself (or his wife). And given Gamow's love of hoaxes, could the story of these long paddles be just an embellishment of the story of his defection?? Perhaps this paragraph needs to read "Gamow claimed that his first two attempts ...", if that is the case. What does the source consulted actually say? Dirac66 (talk) 02:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)


 * The 250 km claim was in the article when I first saw it, and I didn't change it other than minor copyedits for readability. I'm not sure where the story came from, but I do vaguely remember seeing it in a capsule bio on one of the websites referenced from the article.  I agree that the ultimate source must have been Gamow himself (I don't know of his first wife having written or made any statement about this incident).  I doubt he got very far on his supposed 250 km kayak journey, which supposedly was abandoned due to bad weather.  The most likely source is probably Gamow's posthumously published autobiography, which reputedly covers his early years in detail (he died unexpectedly before finishing it).  I can't easily check on this, not having ready access to a copy of that book.


 * I agree that it would be better to say that "Gamow claimed ...", since that is the only thing that likely can be established as fact. Thank you for your constructive skepticism! Reify-tech (talk) 12:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Did Bethe agree to have his name added to the Alpher-Gamow paper?
The main page article asserts that Bethe was unaware of his name being attached to the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow paper. I have no way of knowing whether this is true or not. However, I was a graduate student in Gamow's General Relativity class at the University of Colorado in (I think) 1962, and I remember clearly his great enjoyment in describing how he talked Hans Bethe into having his name included as a co-author. Bethe, Gamow told us, said that he had no real notion regarding the Big Bang, but quite enjoyed the pun. Perhaps it would be appropriate to state that Gamow claimed to have obtained Bethe's permission.Witsubrene (talk) 06:14, 5 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The assertion in the article is unsourced, and we need a published source to settle the point. I looked through the external links in the article on Ralph Alpher, and found his obituary in the Washington Post. The second paragraph on p.2 says that "Bethe, who had nothing to do with the research, gamely agreed." Unless other sources disagree, I think we should delete "without his knowledge" and add "gamely agreed" citing the Washington Post. Dirac66 (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Also the article Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory contains Gamow's version referenced to his 1952 book The Creation of the Universe, which would be a suitable source for "Gamow claimed". Dirac66 (talk) 22:44, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Inventor?
Why do his categories include Ukrainian (or Russian) inventor and American inventor? His work seems to have been (1) theoretical science and (2) popularization. So what did he invent exactly? Dirac66 (talk) 21:30, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Edit war: was the father OR led the development
There have been eight (8) recent edits, mostly in the last day, changing "was the father of the hot big bang theory" to "led the development of the hot big bang theory", and eight reverts back to "was the father of ...". Wikipedia calls this an edit war, and policy is that editors are supposed to stop after about 3 reverts, discuss the issue on the talk page, and attempt to reach a consensus. So let us please have a discussion and state our reasons for preferring one wording to the other.

To start, my own opinion is that (1) the difference is quite trivial since both wordings imply essentially the same fact, but (2) "led the development" is somewhat preferable because it is literally true, whereas "was the father of" is only a metaphor - the hot big bang theory is not really a child and does not really have parents. Other opinions please? Dirac66 (talk) 19:33, 13 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dirac66, for the reasons given. Reify-tech (talk) 19:27, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

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Mr Tompkins - no period
The Mr Tompkins articles and books by Gamow were published first in England with no period after Mr following British usage. The first edition of the first book was published in 1939 by Cambridge University Press. StarryGrandma (talk) 17:42, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

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George Gamow's year of death
The article on George Gamow lists both 1958 and 1968 as his year of death. I was a student in his class at the Univ. of Colorado Boulder in "about" 1958 and he didn't appear to be on his last legs so I suspect 1958 is wrong. BTW he was fascinating. 2601:640:6:A7D2:4191:4F98:63E1:308E (talk) 10:21, 25 April 2017 (UTC)Ralph Hueston Kratz, RalphHKratz@gmail.com
 * Um, where does it say 1958?? Every mention I can find says 1968, both in this article and elsewhere, so I presume 1968 is correct. Dirac66 (talk) 12:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

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