Nobel laureate in nuclear physics
Work on atomic nucleus a milestone
Ben Roy Mottelson, an American-born physicist who shared the Nobel Prize for a groundbreaking explanation of the structure and behaviour of the atomic nucleus, including its shape, its rotations and its oscillations, died May 13. He was 95.
His death was confirmed by Nordita, the Danish institute for theoretical physics where he was a professor emeritus. No additional details were provided.
Dr. Mottelson and his co-winners of the 1975 prize were honoured for work that scientists regard as one of the landmarks in the development of nuclear physics.
By 1945, scientists knew enough about the nucleus — the collection of protons and neutrons at the core of the atom — to pry it apart, releasing vast quantities of energy, and inaugurating what we recognize as the nuclear age.
Knowledge of nuclear structure is regarded as vital in weapons research, power generation and in solving the problems of astrophysics and the history of the universe.
In what is still regarded as one of the crowning achievements of nuclear physics, Dr. Mottelson helped show, using arguments and techniques from quantum theory, how each individual constituent of the nucleus — each proton and each neutron — exerted an effect on the properties and character of the nucleus as a whole. And vice versa.
Dr. Mottelson shared the prize with Aage Bohr of Denmark and James Rainwater of the United States.
Dr. Mottelson worked particularly closely with Bohr, and the theory that has become a milestone in understanding the nucleus is known as the Bohr-mottelson theory.
Ben Roy Mottelson was born in Chicago July 9, 1926, and grew up in La Grange, Ill. His father was an engineer, and mother a homemaker.
He served in the Navy during the Second World War and went to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind.,and graduated in 1947. He the studied theoretical physics at Harvard, receiving his doctorate in 1950.
Dr. Mottelson then went on a fellowship at the then Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen.
He was married in 1948 to Nancy Jane Reno, who died in 1975. They had three children. He was married to Britta Marger Siegumfeldt from 1983 until her death in 2014.