Physicist James Rainwater, 68; Winner of 1975 Nobel Prize

James Rainwater, who shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 1975 for determining that the atomic nucleus is not always round but can also be egg shaped, has died at a suburban New York City hospital. He was 68.

With Aage Bohr of Denmark, he began his work on a theory of the shape of the nucleus in 1949 in an office they shared at Columbia University.

Later Bohr and Ben Mottelson, a Danish-American, further developed the idea and the three were jointly awarded the Nobel.

Their research was credited with further understanding of the fusion process and the division of the atomic nucleus.

Rainwater, who did his graduate work at Columbia, became a full professor there in 1952.

Rainwater, who died Saturday, was a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Assn. for the Advancement of Sciences.

In 1963, he received the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for Physics.