Gaja Alaga (3 July 1924 – 7 September 1988) was a
Croatian theoretical
physicist who specialised in
nuclear physics.
He was born in noble family of
Bunjevac origin in the village of
Lemeš (today called ''Svetozar Miletić'') in northwestern
Bačka in
Kingdom of SHS
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...
(today in autonomous province
Vojvodina,
Serbia).
He was a corresponding member of the
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1968 and a professor at the
University of Zagreb Faculty of Science ( hr, Prirodoslovno-matematički fakultet). He worked in the
Ruđer Bošković Institute in
Zagreb (the
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
city of
Croatia), the
Niels Bohr Institute in
Copenhagen, the
University of California, Berkeley, and
Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
In 1955, cooperating with Kurt Alder and Ben Roy Mottelson, Alaga discovered the K-selection rules and intensity rules for beta and gamma transitions in deformed atom nuclei. This discovery was key to the development of new nuclei models which confirmed that subatomic particles can distort the shape of the atomic nucleus, nucleus. This is by the model for collective motion (based on nuclei deformed from a spherical shape, but with axial symmetry) for which Aage Bohr, Ben Roy Mottelson, and James Rainwater won the 1975 Nobel Prize.
Also in 1955 (the journal ''Physical Review'') and in 1957 (the journal "Nuclear Physics") he discovered asymptotic selection rules for beta and gamma transitions between states of deformed nuclei. The so-called Alaga rules are in common use among specialists in nuclear structure, in comparing theoretical transition rates with measurements.
He was the editor of the scientific magazine ''Fizika'' from 1978 until he died in 1988.
He died in Zagreb in 1988.
Today, a street in the Trnje city district of Zagreb bears his name.
Awards
*Republička nagrada "Ruđer Bošković" (1968)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alaga, Gaja
1924 births
1988 deaths
People from Sombor
Croats of Vojvodina
Croatian nuclear physicists
Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb alumni
Academic staff of the University of Zagreb
Bunjevci