Alpher, Bethe, and Gamow

There is a seminal work in big bang nucleosynthesis (the story of how we got from nothing to elements) that was written by Ralph Alpher and his PhD thesis advisor George Gamow.  The
work was the topic of Alpher's PhD dissertation, and argued that the Big Bang created hydrogen, helium and heavier elements in proportions explained by their abundance in the early universe. The original theory did not consider processes forming heavier elements, but subsequent developments showed that their conception of Big Bang nucleosynthesis is consistent with observations, with a few tweaks.  The paper was formally titled "The Origin of Chemical Elements"and published in Physical Review in 1948.

The work was largely done by Alpher, the PhD student, but when it came time for publication, his PhD advisor Gamow could not help himself.  His friend Hans Bethe would round out the authorship list nicely, make it sound like alpha, beta, gamma, making it the perfect ABC paper author list. 

Later, Gamow would write (in his book in 1952):
"It seemed unfair to the Greek alphabet to have the article signed by Alpher and Gamow only, and so the name of Dr. Hans A. Bethe (in absentia) was inserted in preparing the manuscript for print. Dr. Bethe, who received a copy of the manuscript, did not object, and, as a matter of fact, was quite helpful in subsequent discussions. There was, however, a rumor that later, when the alpha, beta, gamma theory went temporarily on the rocks, Dr. Bethe seriously considered changing his name to Zacharias."

Additionally, these lines were found:
"The close fit of the calculated curve and the observed abundances is shown in Fig. 15, which represents the results of later calculations carried out on the electronic computer of the National Bureau of Standards by Ralph Alpher and R. C. Herman (who stubbornly refuses to change his name to Delter.)"

Of course, Alpher, a graduate student, was not very pleased with this development.  The inclusion of another great physicist on his work, at a time when multiple secondary authors was rare, could make it seem like he contributed less to this work than he actually had, being in reality the sole author working with his advisor Gamow, and Bethe contributing nothing to the work.  He was still expressing resentment over the inclusion of Bethe as late as 1999.

However, after this inclusion for whimsy's sake only, Bethe began working on nucleosynthesis, contributing some excellent bits to science, highlighting how chance of a name can lead you down an interesting and unforeseen path...

Science is done by scientists, and they are people, and they are imperfect, sometimes maddening, sometimes hilarious creatures.  The Alpher, Bethe, Gamow paper is a wonderful example, highlighting the humor of George Gamow in a way that is not often seen these days.  Mostly because it's not considered ethical anymore to include your friend just because they have a last name that rounds out your alphabetical authorship list....