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In a taped interview available from the American Institute of Physics, Gamow talks about YLEM:<ref>[http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4325.html#excerpt interview at American Institute of Physics] at aip.org</ref> |
In a taped interview available from the American Institute of Physics, Gamow talks about YLEM:<ref>[http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4325.html#excerpt interview at American Institute of Physics] at aip.org</ref> |
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...this is YLEM. All this photography was done when I was still in Washington. When this series of origin of elements, alpha, beta, and gamma worked, I remember I bought the bottle of Cointreau to celebrate and wrote YLEM on it and then photographed the bottle and put my head as a genie coming out of it. |
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I mean this is the old Hebrew word meaning something like "space between heaven and earth". |
I mean this is the old Hebrew word meaning something like "space between heaven and earth". |
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==References== |
==References== |
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Revision as of 06:07, 4 August 2009
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (August 2009) |
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline. (August 2009) |
Ylem is a term which was used by George Gamow, Ralph Alpher, and their associates in the late 1940s for a hypothetical original substance or condensed state of matter, which became subatomic particles and elements as we understand them today.
History
It reportedly comes from an obsolete Middle English philosophical word that Gamow came across while thumbing through a dictionary, which means something along the lines of "primordial substance from which all matter is formed", and derives from the Greek hylem, "matter". Restated, the Ylem is the "thing" Gamow, et al., presumed to exist immediately after the Big Bang. Along with the ylem, there were assumed to be a large number of high-energy photons present, which we would still observe today as the cosmic microwave background radiation.[citation needed]
Interview
In a taped interview available from the American Institute of Physics, Gamow talks about YLEM:[1]
...this is YLEM. All this photography was done when I was still in Washington. When this series of origin of elements, alpha, beta, and gamma worked, I remember I bought the bottle of Cointreau to celebrate and wrote YLEM on it and then photographed the bottle and put my head as a genie coming out of it.
Weiner: What is YLEM in this case?
Gamow: A mixture of protons, neutrons and electrons.
Weiner: But the letters stand for what?
Gamow: You can look in the Webster dictionary. This is a word—I think it's an old Hebrew word, but Aristotle was using it—in Webster dictionary it says "material from which elements were formed".
Weiner: The primordial substance?
Gamow: The primordial substance, yes—ylem.
Weiner: The thick soup or whatever you want to call it?
Gamow: I mean this is the old Hebrew word meaning something like "space between heaven and earth".
References
- ^ interview at American Institute of Physics at aip.org
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