---
title: "One Two Three... Infinity"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Two_Three..._Infinity"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:20:41.547970+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Part III is the longest (150 pages) and begins with the "descending staircase" and the classical elements. "Plants take the largest part of the material used in the growth of their bodies ... from the air." Rust is oxidation of iron. The question "How large are the atoms?" calls for an experiment to obtain an oil film just one molecule thick. "1 cu mm of oil can cover 1 sq m of water." The law of definite proportions is stated in plain English (p. 123) as a "fundamental law of chemistry". The  molecular structure of matter was uncovered with molecular beams by Otto Stern, and Lawrence Bragg invented "atomic photography" with X-rays. 
The section "Dissecting the atom" begins by considering oxygen to be doughnut-shaped, fitting the atoms of hydrogen forming water. Dismissing the notion, Gamow asserts that atoms are "complex mechanisms with a large number of moving parts". Through ionization, and reference to J. J. Thomson, the electron is introduced, having mass 1/1840 of the mass of a hydrogen atom. The Rutherford model of the atom, an analogy to the Solar System, is supported with reference to the percentage of mass at the center: 99.87% for the Sun and 99.97% for the nucleus. Gamow's version of the periodic table of the elements uses flower petals with stems at the inert gasses. The "utmost precision" of celestial mechanics is contrasted with the quantum of action, which leads to the uncertainty principle. Diffraction phenomena not explicable with geometric optics necessitated the wave mechanics of Louis de Broglie and Erwin Schrödinger.
In the chapter "The Riddle of Life" the states of matter in an automobile body, engine, and radiator are also present in living systems, but homogeneity of biological tissue is of a different sort. A human is estimated to have more than hundreds of thousands of billions of cells. To eat, grow, and multiply are posited as life characteristics. Dismissed are crystal accretion in a super-saturated solution, and the molecular reaction

  
    
      
        
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On the other hand, virus reproduction is the "missing link" between non-living and living organisms. The eight chromosomes  of Drosophila melanogaster are acknowledged for their contribution to science. Growth by mitosis and reproduction by meiosis with gametes performing syngamy show the function  of chromosomes. Growth and accretion are started with blastula and gastrula.

=== Part IV: Macrocosmos ===
Aristotle's On the Heavens founded cosmology. Earth's circumference was found by Eratosthenes, presuming Aswan is on the boundary of the Northern Tropic. Extra-terrestrial distances use stellar parallax, which Gamow relates to human binocular vision working to push the end of a thread through the eye a needle. A solar-pumpkin scale is introduced where the Sun is pumpkin-sized, Earth is pea-sized, and Moon poppy-sized. This scale proportions an astronomical unit to 200 feet. Friedrich Bessel measured the parallax of 61 Cygni, concluding a distance of 10 light years, making him "the first man who with a yardstick stepped into interstellar space". In the solar-pumpkin scale, 61 Cygni is 30,000 miles away.
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, measures 100,000 light years in diameter with 5 to 10 light years thickness, totaling 4 × 1010 stars. Cepheid variables are pulsating stars that have a period-luminosity relation, exploited by Harlow Shapley to estimate distances to globular clusters. The interstellar dust in the direction of the Galactic Center obscures the view except through Baade's Window.

=== Sources ===
Instead of a bibliography as an appendix, Gamow cites a dozen titles in the course of his exposition:

p. 9: Mathematical Recreations and Essays (1919) by W. W. Rouse Ball
p. 49: What Is Mathematics? (1941) by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins
p. 146: Mr. Thompkins in Wonderland by himself
p. 156: Atomic Physics (1935) by Max Born
p. 156: Modern Physics (1940) by T. B. Brown
p. 187: Explaining the Atom (1947) by Selig Hecht
p. 216: "The Gold-Bug" by Edgar Allan Poe
p. 272: On the Heavens by Aristotle
p. 303: Exposition du Systeme du Monde by Laplace
p. 304: Birth and Death of the Sun (1940) by himself
p. 304: Biography of the Earth by himself
p. 315: A Planet Called Earth by himself

== Reception ==
Science writer Willy Ley praised Gamow's book, describing it as an "admittedly rare ... book which entertains by way of instruction". Kirkus Reviews declared it "a stimulating and provocative book for the science-minded layman". Theoretical physicist Sean M. Carroll credited One Two Three... Infinity with setting the trajectory of his professional life. Cognitive scientist Steven Pinker read the book as a child, and has cited it as contributing to his interest in popular science writing. Astrophysicist and science popularizer Neil deGrasse Tyson identified One Two Three... Infinity as one of two books which had the greatest impact on him, the other being Mathematics and the Imagination by Edward Kasner and James R. Newman.
In 1956, Gamow was awarded the Kalinga Prize by UNESCO for his work in popularizing science, including his book One, Two, Three... Infinity, as well as other works.

== References ==

== External links ==
One Two Three...Infinity via Internet Archive