1904-1968. Soviet cosmologist, nuclear
physicist, and popularizer of science. His
work in astrophysics included a study of the
structure and evolution of stars and the
creation of the elements. He also explained
how the collision of nuclei in the solar
interior could produce the nuclear reactions
that power the Sun. Gamow was also an early
supporter of the Big Bang theory of the
origin of the universe. He predicted that the
electromagnetic radiation left over from the
universe's formation, should, after having
cooled down during the subsequent expansion
of the universe, manifest itself as a
microwave background radiation with a
temperature of 10K (-263 degrees C/-442
degrees F). In 1965 Arno Allan Penzias
(1933-) and Robert Woodrow Wilson (1936-)
discovered the microwave background, which
had a temperature of 3K (-270 degrees C/-454
degrees F), or 3 degrees C above absolute
zero.