Quotes from George Gamow

My father was a teacher of the Russian language and literature in high school.

There was a young fellow from Trinity, Who took the square root of infinity. But the number of digits, Gave him the fidgets; He dropped Math and took up Divinity.

Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star Biggest puzzle from afar How unlike the other ones Brighter than a billion suns Twinkle, twinkle, quasi-star How I wonder what you are.

Whereas all humans have approximately the same life expectancy the life expectancy of stars varies as much as from that of a butterfly to that of an elephant.

Much later, when I was discussing cosmological problems with Einstein, he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life.

I learned Einstein's theory of relativity when I was still in school. I simply got interested.

All kinds of physical considerations become senseless when we try to apply them to distances smaller than 10 -13 centimeter.

It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!

Much later, when I discussed the problem with Einstein , he remarked that the introduction of the cosmological term was the biggest blunder he ever made in his life. But this 'blunder,' rejected by Einstein , is still sometimes used by cosmologists even today, and the cosmological constant denoted by the Greek letter ? rears its ugly head again and again and again.

Since the atoms are indestructible, the disintegration of human body after death should be actually considered as the dispersion of the separate filaments (except probably those forming the bones) in all different directions.

It is well known that theoretical physicists cannot handle experimental equipment; it breaks whenever they touch it. Pauli was such a good theoretical physicist that something usually broke in the lab whenever he merely stepped across the threshold.

Disculpe, pero ¿podría decirme por qué yo no tengo compañero, mientras que todos los demás lo tienen? —le gritó. —¿Por qué? ¡Porque éste es un átomo impar y tú eres el electrón de valenciaaa…!

Let us now divide the time interval from o to t into a large number of very short time intervals and draw vertical lines as shown in the figure, thus forming a large number of thin tall rectangles.

We now can replace the smooth slope corresponding to the continuous motion of the object with a kind of staircase representing a jerky motion in which the velocity abruptly changes by small increments and remains constant for a short time until the next jerk takes place.

During each short time interval the motion is assumed to proceed with a constant velocity corresponding to that time, and the distance covered is equal to this velocity multiplied by the time interval.

But since the velocity is equal to the height of the thin rectangle, and the time interval to its base, this product is equal to the area of the rectangle.

Repeating the same argument for each thin rectangle, we come to the conclusion that the total distance covered during the time interval (o,t) is equal to the area of the staircase or, in the limit, to the area of the triangle ABC.

Avanzamos más de prisa o la calle se vuelve más corta: a fin de cuentas, da lo mismo.

Su cansado cerebro estaba hecho un

There was a young fellow from Trinity Who took But the number of digits Gave him the fidgets; He dropped Math and took up Divinity.

Se supone que el Demonio de Maxwell era un personaje muy hábil, capaz de observar cada molécula y cambiar a su antojo la dirección del movimiento de la misma.

inofensivo. Soy como una broma pesada

No importa cuánto te agrade una teoría: si los resultados experimentales la refutan, habrá que arrojarla a la basura.

My mother was the only girl in the family. One brother was District Attorney of Odessa or something; another was teaching classical languages; another was a captain of a battleship of the Black Navy; and still another was a chemist and icthyologist.