The nuclear single particle model

Twenty years ago in December 1963 one half of the Nobel prize in Physics was awarded to Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Johannes Daniel Jensen for their work on the nuclear shell model. They suggested independently that a strong spin-orbit force with the opposite sign of the one known from atomic physics should be added to the shell-model potential. This proved to be the crucial new idea, because then all the bits of and pieces of evidence that had accumulated over the years fell into place. The author begins with the basic assumption: In a nucleus nucleons move almost independently of each other in an average or shell-model potential. He then provides experimental evidence plausibility arguments and mathematical deductions