George Gamow on choosing a field.

Weiner:

You mentioned that you got bored with nuclear physics because it got complicated. What particular dead ends did you see in it--or did you see any dead ends, any non-productive areas? Is that what you meant?

Gamow:

No. I started nuclear physics because in 1928 everybody was doing atomic and molecular structure, and van der Waals forces and doublets and triplets and spin and so on--it was too much. I didn't want to get mixed up with all this, so I decided to choose myself a corner where nobody was doing anything, so I chose nuclear physics. And in time nuclear physics blew up into a big thing, so I moved to nuclear astronomy, to nuclear astrophysics, cosmology.

Weiner:

The reason I asked is because people with a different point of view would have considered it a very exciting time--slow neutrons, artificial radioactivity, a number of things, experimental results coming in, just pouring in with no explanation.

Gamow:

I like the pioneering thing. I would rather go in these mountains [Colorado] than in California. I like these mountains much better than California, where they have a hot dog stand on the top of each mountain.