George Gamow (Georgiy Antonovich Gamov, 1904 – 1968), sometimes known as Joe, was a Soviet physicist (born in Odessa, Ukraine) who later defected from the totalitarian regime in the Soviet Union and moved to the United States. Known for pioneering work in nuclear physics and cosmology, he also become well-known for his work as an educator writing popular books about science.
Gamow is also known for gifting co-authorship of a paper reporting his students results to his colleague (and leading scientist in his own right) Hans Bethe, and without permission of first author. Today, the ethical aspects of a academic authorship are taken very seriously, and this would likely be seen as professional misconduct. Gamow was a contributor to the work as the supervisor of the research student, but Bethe did not make a substantial intellectual contribution to the work reported. Gifting authorship is contrary to scholarly norms and the requirements of research journals.
However, at a time when people were often more relaxed about such matters, Gamow's intention was humorous, to avoid being unfair the Greek alphabet, and Alpher, Bethe & Gamow (1948) became know as the 𝛂𝛃𝛄 paper. (Apparently Gamow used to refer to his wife, physicist, Lyubov Vokhmintseva as rho – 𝞎).
Read about authorship conventions
Work cited:
- Alpher, R. A., Bethe, H., & Gamow, G. (1948). The origin of the chemical elements. Physical Review, 73(7), 804-804.
