Formally titled “The Origin of the Chemical Elements,” the paper that would become known as the αβγ paper was published in the April 1948 issue of Physical Review. In physical cosmology, the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, or the αβγ paper, was authored by Ralph Alpher, then a doctoral student in physics, his advisor George Gamow, and Hans Bethe. The paper, which would become the subject of Alpher’s doctoral thesis, argued that the Big Bang created hydrogen, helium, and heavier elements in the correct proportions to explain their abundance in the early universe. While the original theory overlooked a number of processes important for the formation of the heavy elements, subsequent developments demonstrated that Big Bang nucleosynthesis is consistent with the observed constraints on all primordial elements. Gamow, after the gimmick of the αβγ article, attempted to write the αβγd article, trying to convince the new co-author, Robert Herman, to change his surname to Delter. Gamow was a Soviet scientist who had repeatedly attempted to escape to the West. Once, he and his wife attempted to cross the Black Sea in a canoe to Turkey, where he allegedly showed an old Danish driver’s license he had left over from a brief stay in Denmark. He then sought refuge in the Danish embassy, where a phone call to his friend Niels Bohr saved him. But a nighttime storm prevented him from reaching the other side of the Black Sea, and they had to return to the Soviet Union. The next opportunity arose when, at the Solvay Conference, he managed to get invited by Niels Bohr and Paul Langevin, unaware of Gamow’s plans. The mediation of Marie Curie, a great friend of Langevin, allows Gamow to obtain the money to buy a ticket for a ship to New York.
