Since the atomic nucleus was first proposed in 1911, physicists simply assumed it was round. But are the nuclei of atoms really round? Intuitively this shape makes sense and physicists believed it ...

For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser. The achievement would allow today's atomic clocks to be ...

Quantum mechanics explains why the electrons can keep spinning indefinitely. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. An atom is best ...

Researchers have been able to initiate a controlled movement in the very heart of an atom. They caused the atomic nucleus to interact with one of the electrons in the outermost shells of the atom.

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 ...

At 11:30 one night in May 2024, a graduate student, Chuankun Zhang, saw a signal that physicists have sought for 50 years. As a peak rose from the static on his monitor at the research institute JILA ...

A new measurement of the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together, confirms previous hints of an uncomfortable truth: We still don’t have a solid theoretical grasp of even the ...

A new physics result two decades in the making has found a surprisingly complex path for the production of strange matter within atoms. “This data is the first time we study the lambda in the [atomic] ...

From nearly indestructible metals, like tungsten, to delicate clouds in the sky, atoms make up everything around us. But do these atoms ever touch each other? As with most topics in atomic physics, ...

Most of an atom is empty space, so why does some matter feel solid? Two physics principles explain why. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it ...