clarification. 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 APL. He met Russian-Ukrainian physicist George Gamow at the University, who subsequently took him on as his doctoral student. This was somewhat of a coup, as Gamow was a prominent Soviet defector and one of the luminaries on the GWU faculty. His first physics course was taught by Edward Teller, brought onto the GWU faculty in 1935 to give Gamow a peer on the faculty. Alpher provided much needed mathematical ability to support Gamow's theorizing. Gamow often gave talks across the world on "The Origin of the Elements", which was Alpher's original dissertation. Gamow continues to be credited with Alpher's work on nucleosynthesis. Alpher followed his dissertation immediately with the first prediction of the existence of "fossil" radiation from a hypothetical singularity—the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. This was observationally confirmed by Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs using a horn radiotelescope. Further research has shown other observations made, but not interpreted cosmologically. They were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the observation in 1978. Ironically a group at Princeton was given credit for making a cosmological interpretation in an inflationary universe (Big Bang) in a companion publication in 1965 to Penzias and Wilson, which is incorrect. While attending GWU, Alpher met Louise Ellen Simons, who was majoring in psychology at night school and working as a day secretary with the State Department. Nearly two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Alpher and Louise were married. At this time he had already done classified work for the U.S. Navy through the Carnegie Institution for nearly one and a half years. During a hiatus in his scientific work in early 1944, he did apply to the Navy for a commission, for which he was eligible. By this time he had done so much classified and secret work he was no longer subject to the draft (along with about 7,000 others), and prohibited from enlistment. That summer, he signed on to APL at Johns Hopkins University to work on another classified project—a new magnetic-influence torpedo exploder. This was badly needed since the Mark 14 torpedo, which had a poorly tested exploder that had its magnetic component turned off by order of the