If you hit an atom’s nucleus hard enough, it will fall apart. But exactly how it falls apart tells us something about the internal structure of the nucleus and perhaps about the interior of neutron ...

The word magic is not often used in the context of science. But in the early 1930s, scientists discovered that some atomic nuclei—the center part of atoms, which make up all matter—were more stable ...

According to the classical model of nuclear structure, the internal structure of nucleons should not change if they are bound into atomic nuclei. But it was discovered 35 years ago that quarks inside ...

An experiment at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in the United States provides new insights into the strong interaction that holds neutrons and protons together inside atomic nuclei 1.

When most of us picture an atom, we think about a small nucleus made of protons and neutrons orbited by one or more electrons. We view these electrons as point-like while rapidly orbiting the nucleus.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it. The story of our cosmic history is one of an expanding and cooling ...

A few years ago, a novel measurement technique showed that protons are probably smaller than had been assumed since the 1990s. The discrepancy surprised the scientific community; some researchers even ...

Inside the nucleus of some atoms, protons appear to be doing very unexpected things. They are pairing up far more often than usual when they get extremely close to each other, and physicists don’t ...

HEISENBERG has discussed the hypothesis that the nucleus of an atom is composed of neutrons and protons only, the neutron being regarded as a fundamental entity and not as a combination of an electron ...

While protons populate the nucleus of every atom in the universe, sometimes they can be squeezed into a smaller size and slip out of the nucleus for a romp on their own. Observing these squeezed ...