Magic Number (physics) - Origin of The Term

Origin of The Term

According to Steven A. Moszkowski (a student of Maria Goeppert-Mayer), the term "magic number" was coined by Eugene Wigner: "Wigner, too, believed in the liquid drop model, but he recognized, from the work of Maria Mayer, the very strong evidence for the closed shells. It seemed a little like magic to him, and that is how the words ‘Magic Numbers’ were coined.”

Read more about this topic:  Magic Number (physics)

Famous quotes containing the words origin of, origin and/or term:

    The origin of storms is not in clouds,
    our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
    spillways free authentic power:
    dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
    to break the armored and concluded mind.
    Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

    The origin of storms is not in clouds,
    our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
    spillways free authentic power:
    dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
    to break the armored and concluded mind.
    Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)

    Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.
    Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)