The statistical atom
This review was written in 1985 as an invited article for Physikalische Blätter, but the editor did not like what we submitted and did not put the paper into print. A few years later, it was to be the very first paper in a new physical chemistry journal, which never came into existence. After decades in limbo, the review is now a fitting contribution to these proceedings.
This review is the updated and enlarged version of a talk delivered by J. S. on the occasion of the 1982 meeting of Nobel laureates at Lindau, and of talks given by B.-G. E. at several West German universities and Max Planck institutes in 1984.