Alpher, Ralph

Gamow could combine serious science with a less than serious presentation. This is clear not only in his wonderful books of popular science but also in a famous paper titled "The Origin of the Chemical Elements." With coauthor Ralph Alpher, Gamow argued for the big bang theory and attempted to show how the big bang created the elements. The paper was a landmark in that it correctly predicted the amounts of hydrogen, helium, and the heavier elements in the universe. 

Between 1948 and 1950 a trio of physicists, George Gamow (1904-68), Ralph Alpher (1921- ), and Robert Herman (1914-97), worked out a detailed mathematical analysis of this "fossil radiation" and determined that its temperature would he about 5 K (about 2.72 degrees above absolute zero), a very cold temperature indeed, hut not zero That prediction made possible another experimental test of the big hang. The challenge was to search the skies to see if low-level radiation of this temperature could he found. 

Herman, Robert, and Ralph A. Alpher. Genesis of the Big Bang. New York Oxford University Press, 2001. 

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