Scientists have been studying the nucleus of the atom ever since Ernest Rutherford first discovered it in 1909. Twenty-five years later, scientists were already describing the nucleus as a ...

What happens when the smallest building blocks of matter refuse to play by the rules of traditional physics? For decades, atomic nuclei have posed a stubborn puzzle: at low energies, they appear as ...

The atomic nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons, particles that exist through the interaction of quarks bonded by gluons. It would seem, therefore, that it should not be difficult to reproduce ...

This image depicts the radium atom’s pear-shaped nucleus of protons and neutrons in the center, surrounded by a cloud of electrons (yellow), and an electron (yellow ball with arrow) that has a ...