2021-06-25 Fri

Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen was a German nuclear physicist. During World War II, he worked on the German nuclear energy project, known as the Uranium Club, where he contributed to the separation of uranium isotopes. After the war, Jensen was a professor at the University of Heidelberg. He was a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Institute for Advanced Study, University of California, Berkeley, Indiana University, and the California Institute of Technology.

Jensen shared half of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the nuclear shell model.

After obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg in 1932, Jensen served on the faculties of Hamburg, the Institute of Technology in Hannover, and the University of Heidelberg. He and Mayer proposed the shell model independently of each other in 1949. The shell nuclear model holds that an atomic nucleus should be thought of not as a random aggregation of neutrons and protons but rather as a structure of shells, or spherical layers, of differing radii, each of which is filled with neutrons and protons. Jensen collaborated with Mayer in writing Elementary Theory of Nuclear Shell Structure (1955).

To honor him Uganda Postal Department has issued a stamp on the occasion of the 100th Anniversary of Nobel Prizes.

Image Source: http://www.jgiesen.de