Abstract
For a long time experimental atomic physics has been a pacesetter for progress in basic research as well as a touchstone for new theories. Quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics on which today's physics is based are inconceivable without the data accumulated in many ingenious and precise experiments by atomic physicists. Although the focal point of scientific work has since shifted to nuclear and chiefly to elementary particle physics, which is being investigated at the world's largest accelerators, atomic physics still remains indispensable in order to understand more and more the fundamental law by which nature is governed.
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