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*[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081301014.html Obituary in the Washington Post]
*[http://www.legacy.com/TimesUnion-Albany/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=92608104 Obituary in the Albany (NY) Times-Union]
*[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/30/db3002.xml Obituary in the (London/UK) Daily Telegraph]
[[Category:1921 births|Alpher, Ralph Asher]]
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Revision as of 19:37, 12 December 2007
Ralph Asher Alpher (February 3, 1921-August 12, 2007)[1] was a U.S. cosmologist.
Childhood and Education
Alpher was the son of a Russian immigrant, Samuel Alpher, from Vitebsk, Russia. He graduated at age 15 from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., and was Major and Commander of his school's Cadet program. He worked in the high school theater as Stage Manager for two years, supplementing his family's Depression-era income. He also learned Gregg Shorthand, and in 1939 began working for the Director of the Carnegie Institution as a stenographer. When it was discovered that he was studying Physics, he was immediately reclassified as a Junior Physicist, and continued working as an applied Physicist throughout the Second World War—contributing to the development of the Mark 32 and Mark 45 detonators, torpedoes, the proximity fuze, and other Top Secret ordnance work for which he was recognized at the end of the War with the Naval Ordnance Development Award (December 10, 1945—with Symbol). At age 16, he was offered a full scholarship to MIT, but it was withdrawn after a mandatory meeting with an MIT alumnus in Washington, D.C., with no explanation or clarification (personal communication to Dr. Victor S. Alpher). Instead, he earned his bachelor's degree and advanced graduate degrees in Physics from George Washington University, all the while working as a Physicist on contract to the Navy, and eventually for the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He met eminent Russian physicist George Gamow at the University, who subsequently took him on as his doctoral student. This was somewhat of a coup, as Gamow was an eminent Soviet defector and one of the luminaries on the GWU faculty.
Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory (Alpha-Beta-Gamma)
Alpher's dissertation in 1948 involved the prediction of the distribution of the chemical elements in the first moments following the Big Bang—a term coined by Fred Hoyle, proponent of the alternative Steady State Theory. The significance of his dissertation was immediately apparent, as the dissertation defense was held in a hall with over 300 attendees, including the Press, followed by a Herblock cartoon and articles in major newspapers about his predictions—quite unusual for a doctoral dissertation. Later the same year, collaborating with Dr. Robert Herman, Alpher predicted the temperature of the residual radiation resulting from the hypothesized Big Bang, which was confirmed empirically in 1964 by two physicists working for Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson. It is apparent that Alpher provided much needed mathematical ability to support Gamow's theorizing.
Hans Bethe had virtually no part in the development of the theory (although he later worked on related topics); Gamow added his name to make the seminal paper's title a pun on "Alpha-Beta-Gamma," the first three letters of the Greek alphabet. Thus, Alpher's independent dissertation was first published on April 1, 1948 in the journal Nature with three authors. The humor engendered by the prodigious Gamow may at times have obscured the critical role Alpher played in developing the theory. Other scientists who read the paper may have assumed (erroneously) that Gamow and Bethe had been the primary contributors. Traditionally, dissertation advisors appear as second authors on dissertation publications.
Perhaps because of the highly classified nature of his work for the U.S. Navy and the Office of Scientific Research and Development, Alpher's work in Naval Ordnance during World War II has been somewhat obscured. However, he did receive the Naval Ordnance Development Award in December 1945. Alpher was somewhat ambivalent about the nature of this work[2] and moved to a position with the General Electric Company's Research and Development Center in 1954.
Alpher and Robert Herman were later awarded the Henry Draper Medal in 1993. They were also awarded the Magellanic Premium of the American Philosophical Society in 1975, the Georges Vanderlinden Physics prize of the Belgian Academy of Sciences, as well as significant awards of the New York Academy of Sciences and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia—in other words, nearly every significant professional recognition saving the Nobel Prize. Two Nobel Prizes in Physics have been awarded for empirical work related to the Big Bang—in 1978 to Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson and in 2006 to John Mather and George Smoot. Finally, Alpher's seminal work in nucleosynthesis was recognized with award of the 2005 National Medal of Science, along with his other major contributions to the fledgling discipline of Astrophysics.
Alpher and Herman (the latter, posthumously) published their own account of their work in cosmology in 2001, Genesis of the Big Bang (Oxford University Press).
Union College career
From 1987 to 2004 he served as Distinguished Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Union College of Union University in Schenectady, New York, during which time he was able to return to research and teaching after 30 years with the General Electric Research and Development Center, a period during which he continued to publish major peer-reviewed scientific papers, and was active in community service for Public Broadcasting. Dr. Alpher also simultaneousy (1987-2004) was Director of The Dudley Observatory. He also was recognized with the Distinguished Alumnus Achievement Award of the George Washington University in 1986, all of his degrees being achieved at night whilst working for the Navy and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory during the daytime. In 2004 he joined the Emeritus faculty at Union and was Emeritus Director of Dudley. He also received honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Union College and the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute.
National Medal of Science
Alpher was a 2005 recipient of the National Medal of Science, the highest such honor in the United States. The citation for this award reads "For his unprecedented work in the areas of nucleosynthesis, for the prediction that universe expansion leaves behind background radiation, and for providing the model for the Big Bang theory." From 2005 until his passing, he remained Emeritus Director of the Dudley Observatory and Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Union College, Schenectady, New York.
The medal was presented to his son Dr. Victor S. Alpher on July 27, 2007 by President George W. Bush, as his father could not travel to receive the award. Ralph Alpher passed away following an extended illness on August 12, 2007. He had been in failing health since falling and breaking his hip in February 2007.
References
- ^ Obituary in the Albany (NY) Times-Union
- ^ (source: Dr. Victor S. Alpher)
1. Union College (www.union.edu) 2. Dr. Victor S. Alpher (son of Ralph A. Alpher). 3. "On the Origin and Relative Abundance of the Elements," Doctoral Dissertation, George Washington University, May, 1948.
External links
- Newspaper review of Big Bang book citing Alpher as major contributor to Big Bang theory
- Article about Alpher's life in a 1999 Discover magazine.
- Obituary in the Washington Post
- Obituary in the Albany (NY) Times-Union
- Obituary in the (London/UK) Daily Telegraph