Atomic Physics Encounters The Loser

Abstract

A survey of 'atomic physics', let alone 'atomic and molecular physics', poses a dual dilemma at the present time. The diversity of the subject is near insuperable at any time – classified equally as atomic physics is work on, say, nuclear interactions and hyperfine structure, energy level structures in many electron atoms, collision processes in gaseous nebulae, and the shapes of hydrogen lines in a laboratory plasma, to name but a few!