The Last Big Bang Man Left Standing - physicist Ralph Alpher devised Big Bang Theory of universe

NO ONE EVER RECOGNIZES HIM, although he is arguably one of the most important scientists of the century. He seems to just blend into matter and light. On campus he's the predictable physics prof, emerging from the science building at Union College with his hands deep in his pockets, a suspender peeking out from under his tan sweater. But you can blow his cover with a single question' Where did we come from? Ralph Alpher knows the answer. Back in 1948, Alpher wrote a Ph.D. dissertation that gave birth to the scientific theory known as the Big Bang. He revealed, mathematically at least, how the universe began in a superhot explosion 14 billion years ago. A few months later, he showed how to prove it. But in 1948, good math or not, these were loony ideas, and radio astronomy was a very young science. No one seemed willing or able to point a radio telescope toward deep space to confirm them. The years rolled by and everyone forgot about Ralph Alpher. Then one day in 1964, two radio astronomers from Bell Labs stumbled on the evidence that Alpher was right. Except they had never heard of him either. So they got the Nobel Prize, and he got bupkis. But that's exactly the kind of injustice Ralph Alpher is used to.

Roll the tape back to 1937. The kindly old physics professor is a husky 16-year-old prodigy with dark hair and glasses. He gets a letter from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It invites him to attend the school for free, on a full scholarship.

But there's a catch. MIT says the scholarship is good only if Alpher attends full-time and does not work. This is the Great Depression. Alpher's immigrant father is a home builder in Washington, D.C., at a time when no one can afford to buy a house. Alpher doesn't even have train fare to Boston. How can he go to school if he can't work part-time for books and meals? The letter tells him to meet with an alumnus in Washington. He talks to the alum for hours, hoping to find a way to make this work. But the guy keeps turning the conversation back to the same subject--religion--and asks Alpher about his religious beliefs. "I told him I was Jewish," Alpher says. Soon after, a second letter comes. The scholarship is withdrawn, without explanation.

"My brother had told me not to get my hopes up," Alpher says, "and he was damn right. It was a searing experience. He said it was unrealistic to think that a Jew could go anywhere back then. I don't know if you know what it was like for Jews before World War II. It was terrible."

When Ralph Alpher says something is terrible, you believe it. The word turns to ash as it drops from his lips.

Of course Alpher had earned that scholarship. Just as he had earned the right to get credit for his theory about the Big Bang. And that's what really drives him crazy: credit is everything to a scientist. "The important thing is to get the credit in the literature," he says. "There are two reasons you do science. One is an altruistic feeling that maybe you can contribute to mankind's store of knowledge about the world. The other and more personal thing is you want the approbation of your peers. Pure and simple."

Yes, this has happened before, scientists who made good and never collected. Perhaps the most famous example is Gregor Mendel, the Austrian botanist and monk who tinkered with sweet peas in his monastery courtyard. He summed up everything he had observed about the propagation of genetic traits in two papers that were published without much notice long before he died in 1884. Only after the chromosome theory of heredity was nailed down in the early 1900s was he hailed as the father of genetics.

Alpher may be the Mendel of the modern age. "I don't really know Mr. Alpher," says Hans Bethe, 93, Nobel laureate and often lauded as the world's greatest living physicist. But the theorist who helped Oppenheimer build the first atomic bomb and later devoted his life to disarmament does know Alpher's story. "I think it is a fact that he has not been given proper credit, and it is a fact that he deserves a lot of credit."

Growing up, Ralph Asher Alpher had a code. It's in the Boy Scout Handbook: A Scout works to pay his way. A Scout is true. That's Alpher. He rises formally and gives you a two-handed shake. He doesn't laugh; he chortles politely. He has worked steadily since he was 12 years old, a stagehand earning 50 cents an hour. Some weeks it was more than his father made.

Alpha is A, the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Aleph in Hebrew, alif in Arabic. A name that signifies beginnings--genesis, how the world began. Alpher has already thought about this by the time he is 11. In Hebrew school he reads Genesis and begins to argue with his rabbi. His private stash of books tells a more rational tale. They are written by science heavyweights: Sir Arthur Eddington. Paul de Kruif. Sir James Jeans.

The rabbi's book was written by the finger of God.

"It got hot and heavy," Alpher recalls. "I'd bring in quotations, with references, and he didn't want to have any part of it. Finally he said, `You gotta go through the bar mitzvah to honor your father. And after that,' he said, `I don't care what the hell you do.'"