Nationality Danish–American Fields Nuclear physics Institutions Nordita | Name Ben Mottelson Awards Nobel Prize in Physics Role Physicist | |
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Born July 9, 1926 (age 97)
Chicago, Illinois ( 1926-07-09 ) Alma mater Purdue University, B.S. 1947
Harvard University, Ph.D. 1950 Known for Geometry of atomic nuclei Notable awards Atoms for Peace Award (1969)
John Price Wetherill Medal (1974)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1975) Spouse Nancy Jane Reno (1948-1975; 3 children)
Britta Marger Siegumfeldt (m. 1983) Books Nuclear Structure: Nuclear deformations Education Harvard University, Purdue University Similar People Aage Bohr, James Rainwater, Denys Wilkinson, Julian Schwinger, Marcos Moshinsky | ||
Doctoral advisor Julian Schwinger | ||
Ben Roy Mottelson
Ben Roy Mottelson (born July 9, 1926) is an American-born Danish nuclear physicist. He won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the non-spherical geometry of atomic nuclei.
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Early life
Mottelson was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Georgia (Blum) and Goodman Mottelson, an engineer. He graduated from Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, Illinois. He received a Bachelor's degree from Purdue University in 1947, and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Harvard University in 1950.
Career
He moved to Institute for Theoretical Physics (later the Niels Bohr Institute) in Copenhagen on the Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard, and remained in Denmark. In 1953 he was appointed staff member in CERN's Theoretical Study Group, which was based in Copenhagen, a position he held until he became professor at the newly formed Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) in 1957. He was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley in Spring 1959. In 1971 he became a naturalized Danish citizen.
In 1950–51, James Rainwater and Aage Bohr had developed models of the atomic nucleus which began to take into account the behaviour of the individual nucleons. These models, which moved beyond the simpler liquid drop treatment of the nucleus as having effectively no internal structure, were the first models which could explain a number of nuclear properties, including the non-spherical distribution of charge in certain nuclei. Mottelson worked with Aage Bohr to compare the theoretical models with experimental data. In three papers which were published in 1952–53, Bohr and Mottelson demonstrated close agreement between theory and experiment, for example showing that the energy levels of certain nuclei could be described by a rotation spectrum. This work stimulated new theoretical and experimental studies.
Nobel Prize (1975)
Rainwater, Bohr and Mottelson were jointly awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the connection between collective motion and particle motion in atomic nuclei and the development of the theory of the structure of the atomic nucleus based on this connection".
Post-Nobel prize work
Bohr and Mottelson continued to work together, publishing a two-volume monograph, Nuclear Structure. The first volume, Single-Particle Motion, appeared in 1969, and the second volume, Nuclear Deformations, in 1975.
Professor Mottelson is a member of the Board of Sponsors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
He is a foreign fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 1969, he received the Atoms for Peace Award. He acted as director of ECT* (Trento, Italy) from 1993 to 1997.
Personal life
Mottelson has dual citizenship. He has both Danish and American citizenship. He lives in Copenhagen, Denmark. Mottelson was married to Nancy Jane Reno from 1948 until her death in 1975. They had two sons and one daughter. Mottelson then married Britta Marger Siegumfeldt in 1983.