During the summer of 1934, GW President Cloyd Heck Marvin, recognizing the rapid advancement of the new quantum theory and nuclear physics, wanted to further promote the sciences at the university. Following the advice of Merle Tuve, then-director of the accelerator laboratory at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Marvin brought on theoretician and renowned physicist George Gamow to the university’s Physics Department.
Gamow agreed to come under several conditions: He wanted to bring friend and colleague Edward Teller, and he wanted the resources to organize yearly conferences on current topics in physics. Marvin agreed, and thus began a tradition of bringing together some of the country’s greatest scientific minds for conferences on GW’s campus, jointly sponsored by GW and the Carnegie Institution.