Ralph Asher Alpher

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Ralph Asher Alpher (born 1921) is a U.S. cosmologist. Alpher was something of a child prodigy, and at the age of 16 he was offered a scholarship to MIT, but it was withdrawn, possibly because they found out he was Jewish. Instead, he got his bachelor's degree from George Washington University, where he met George Gamow, then a professor there who took him on as his doctoral student.

Alpher is best known for his prediction of residual cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) from the Big Bang, in 1948, along with George Gamow. The Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory, which he assisted Gamow in developing, was published as an important paper in April of 1948. It is thought 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 paper's title a pun of "Alpha-Beta-Gamma," the first three letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpher was reportedly quite upset by this addition - and with good reason. Having the two well-known physicists as co-authors likely resulted in Alpher's being overlooked for the critical role he played in developing the theory. Other scientists who read the paper assumed Gamow and Bethe had been the primary contributors and, despite his important contribution to Big Bang theory, Alpher remains largely unknown.

Alpher and Robert Herman won the Henry Draper Medal in 1993.