It is with great sadness to inform you that our distinguished professor emeritus Ben Mottelson passed away on Friday, May 13. Ben was an extraordinary physicist and human being in general. He has been a professor at Nordita since it was founded in 1957 in Copenhagen. He has obviously been of immense importance to Nordita and its development for many decades. Our thoughts are his family and friends to process this loss.
Ben was a professor at the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) and Nordita, where he was employed for most of his career. With Aage Bohr he developed a unified model of atomic nuclei that could explain many facets of the properties of nuclei. This model combined aspects of Niels Bohr?s liquid drop model with shell effects, and for this work Ben, together with Aage Bohr and James Rainwater, was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics in 1975. Ben had a strong influence on contemporaries in the field, as well as the younger generation of physicists in nuclear and quantum many-body physics. In later years, he turned his attention to metallic clusters, quantum dots and ultracold atomic gases, and also worked with Aage Bohr and Ole Ulfbeck on the foundations of quantum physics.
Ben was a professor at the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI) and Nordita, where he was employed for most of his career. With Aage Bohr he developed a unified model of atomic nuclei that could explain many facets of the properties of nuclei. This model combined aspects of Niels Bohr?s liquid drop model with shell effects, and for this work Ben, together with Aage Bohr and James Rainwater, was awarded the Nobel prize in Physics in 1975. Ben had a strong influence on contemporaries in the field, as well as the younger generation of physicists in nuclear and quantum many-body physics. In later years, he turned his attention to metallic clusters, quantum dots and ultracold atomic gases, and also worked with Aage Bohr and Ole Ulfbeck on the foundations of quantum physics.
Nordita is grateful for everything that Ben has meant for the institute and its people.