= Victor Weisskopf
{c}
{tag=Physicist}
{wiki}
<Victor Weisskopf> developed a statistical treatment of particle emission from highly excited heavy <atomic nuclei>. His 1937 paper compares the process with evaporation: the <excitation energy> is shared among many internal <quantum states>, and the available final states constrain which particles can escape with which <energies>. This connects <nuclear level density> with emission probabilities and approximately thermal-looking outgoing spectra. <Nuclear evaporation> supplies a way to predict the aggregate outcome of a complicated <nuclear reaction> without following every individual internal trajectory.<Statistics and Nuclear Reactions by Victor Weisskopf>[1937 abstract, statistical emission probabilities and evaporation analogy]{ref}
\Image[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Redirect/file/Weisskopf%2CVictor%201963%20Kopenhagen.jpg?width=240]
{title=Portrait of <Victor Weisskopf>}
{description=GFHund; photograph from Friedrich Hund’s estate, prepared for Wikipedia in August 2010. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/[CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.}
{source=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weisskopf,Victor_1963_Kopenhagen.jpg}
{width=240}
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