In the field of nuclear dynamics a central theme has been the struggle to find the proper place for the complementary concepts referring to the independent motion of the individual nucleons and the collective behaviour of the nuccleus as a whole. This development has been a continuing process involving the interplay of ideas and discoveries relating to all different aspects of nuclear phenomena. The multi-dimensionality of this development makes it tempting to go directly to a description of our present understanding and to the problems and perspectives as they appear today. However, an attempt to follow the evolution of some of the principal ideas may be instructive in illustrating the struggle for understanding of many-body systems, which have continued to inspire the development of fundamental new concepts, even in cases where the basic equations of motion are well established. Concepts appropriate for describing the wealth of nuclear phenomena have been derived from a combination of many different approaches, including the exploration of general relations following from considerations of symmetry, the study of model systems, sometimes of a grossly oversimplified nature, and, of course, the clues provided by the experimental discoveries which have again and again given the development entirely new directions.
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