Otto Kofoed-Hansen

Danish physicist (1921-1990), the first head of the physics department at the Atomic Energy Commission's Experimental Plant Risø (1956-68); from 1960 also professor of reactor physics at the Technical University of Denmark and 1968-76 senior physicist at CERN. Together with JC Jacobsen (1895-1965), Kofoed-Hansen experimentally demonstrated the recoil energy of radioactive atomic nuclei when neutrinos are emitted by beta decay. He has also made important contributions to reactor physics, plasma physics, reactor safety assessment, health physics and, after 1968, particle physics. In 1989, Kofoed-Hansen was awarded the Danish Physical Society's physics prize. — The Great Danish