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Ralph Asher Alpher (February 3, 1921 – August 12, 2007) was an American cosmologist who carried out pioneering work in the early 1950s on the Big Bang model, including Big Bang nucleosynthesis and predictions of the cosmic microwave background radiation.
Alpher was the son of a Jewish immigrant, Samuel Alpher (né Ilfirovich), from Vitebsk, Russian Empire. His mother, Rose Maleson, died of stomach cancer in 1938, and his father later remarried. Alpher graduated at age 15 from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., and held the ranks of major and commander of his school’s Cadet program. He worked in the high school theater as stage manager for two years, supplementing his family’s Depression-era income. He also learned Gregg shorthand, and in 1937 began working for the director of the American Geophysical Union as a stenographer.
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Tomorrow, February 4: David Brenner