"This book tells the incredible story of George Gamow, one of the most brilliant and extravagant physicists of the past century. Gamow was born in Russia in 1904 and died in the USA in 1968. He lived his life in a time between the twenties and the sixties, characterized by rapid developments in physics and became a key figure of that time. Gamow's true merits were seldom fully recognized. Yet his ideas are behind a number of Nobel Prizes for Physics during the past century. His remarkable achievements in Nuclear Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology were the result of a combination of expertise and creativity, intuition and, importantly, of a good sense of humor. Together they craft the image of a true revolutionary scientist. Gamow also had a natural talent for popularization and was throughout his life a successful science communicator"-- Provided by publisher.