Bethe's name, which is pronounced BAY-ta, was added to an article on
cosmogenesis published by Ukrainian physicist George Gamow and American
physicist Ralph Alpher, "The Origin of Chemical Elements" (1948). This
article heralded the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe. It
became known as the Alpher-Bethe-Gamow theory, Gamow having playfully
added Bethe's name to make a pun on the first three letters of the
Greek alphabet, alpha beta gamma.