Nobel prize medal awarded to the American-Danish nuclear physicist Ben Mottelson in 1975. Modeled by Erik Lindberg. 66 mm, 204.5 g, 23 kt (0.992), Au. During the years 1901–1902 Erik Lindberg was living in Paris and it was here that he - influenced by the modern French engravers such as Roty, Chaplain, Tasset and Vernon - created the proto-type of the Nobel prize. The obverse bearing Nobel's portrait was reduced in October 1901 at Janvier's in Paris but the final punching took place in Stockholm, and since the beginning the Nobel Medals have been struck and finished at Myntverket (the Royal Mint) in Eskilstuna, Sweden. The inscription taken from the Aeneid by Vergil reads: “Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes” (c. “It is a joy to enhance life through developed skills”). The reverse represents Nature in the form of a the goddess Isis holding a cornucopia. The veil which covers her face is held up by the Genius of Science. Below the figures the name of Ben Mottelson is engraved on a plate besides the text “REG. ACAD. SCIENT. SUEC.” (The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).
Ben Roy Mottelson (*1926 - ), who became a naturalized Danish citizen in 1971 was awarded the Nobel prize 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”. Mottelson was born in Chicago and obtained a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Harvard University in 1950. Soon after he moved to Copenhagen where he came into close scientific collaboration with Aage Bohr. In 1957 he was appointed professor of the newly founded Nordic Institute for Theoretical Atomic Physics, and in 1959 he was visiting professor at Berkeley. - Of the utmost historical and cultural importance.
Coins and medals, 2 May 2013