Chapter 14
NOW THE GAME WAS WON
T
oward the end of the summer of 1928, a young Russian who had just finished a two-month summer school in Göttingen stopped off for a day in Copenhagen, hoping to meet Niels Bohr before he returned to Leningrad. Finding some free time in the afternoon, Bohr listened keenly as the gangling young man, George Gamow, explained how he had worked out an elegant but odd answer to a longstanding puzzle. Bohr asked Gamow how long he intended to stay in Copenhagen. Gamow replied that he had to leave that very day, as the modest amount of money the Soviet authorities had supplied for his trip had run out. If he could arrange for a year’s fellowship at the institute, Bohr asked, would Gamow be willing to stay? Gamow paused, gulped, and said yes. What grabbed Bohr’s attention was Gamow’s explanation of
