1/4: This file introduces the early lives of George Gamow and Fred Hoyle. George Gamow (Georgy Antonovich Gamow) was born in Odessa in March 1904. His father, Anton Gamow, taught Lev Bronstein (later Leon Trotsky). Gamow attended Petrograd University (now

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 27 September 2025

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

1/4: This file introduces the early lives of George Gamow and Fred Hoyle. George Gamow (Georgy Antonovich Gamow) was born in Odessa in March 1904. His father, Anton Gamow, taught Lev Bronstein (later Leon Trotsky). Gamow attended Petrograd University (now St. Petersburg), studying under Alexander Friedmann, who developed solutions to Einstein's general relativity describing universal expansion. After Friedmann's death in 1925, Gamow switched to quantum and nuclear physics, discovering alpha particle decay and quantum tunneling. He went to Niels Bohr's Institute in Copenhagen. Disliking communist intrusion into science, he attempted escaping the Soviet Union via rubber kayak across the Black Sea to Turkey, but storms forced them back. Niels Bohr arranged their escape via the 1933 Solvay conference, eventually reaching George Washington University. Fred Hoyle was born in 1915 in West Yorkshire; his mother played classical music for silent films, and Hoyle learned reading from film subtitles.
Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate, by Paul Halpern

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0:00.0	Building a coffee business?
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0:15.0	you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends.
0:17.9	Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more.
0:29.9	This is CBS. Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor.
0:35.9	I welcome Professor Paul Halpert at the University of the Sciences, the author of a new book,
0:40.7	Flashes of Creation, George Kamoff, Fred Hoyle,
0:47.1	and the Great Big Bang Debate of the 20th century. Professor, a very good evening to you. Thank you for this. Let's get our two protagonists born. Georgi Antonovich Gamoff, born Odessa, March of 1904.
0:55.4	I find most ironic, his father was a teacher.
0:59.3	This was the time that there was much excitement in Russia because of the revolution,
1:05.9	1905 and then the 1917, 1918 revolution.
1:09.8	But his father, who was one of his father's students?
1:12.8	And what did our hero, Georgi Antonovich, Gamov, make of that fact?
1:18.0	Good evening to you, Paul.
1:19.6	Good evening.
1:20.4	Thank you for having me on the show.
1:22.9	Joe is pronounced, it's spelled Gio and pronounced Joe, Gammov, that he always went by the American
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