Why do some elements decay in minutes, while others last billions of years? Certain "magic numbers" of nuclear particles may ...

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 ...

Physicists Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen develop a theory of the nucleus as composed of shells of protons and neutrons. It explains why nuclei with certain “magic numbers” of protons and ...

For surfers, it's not enough just to wait for the right wave: they still have to know how to catch it. As it turns out, one challenge faced by surfers also applies to protons. An experiment recently ...

Physicists have found evidence of a new “magic number” of neutrons in an unstable isotope of calcium. Using the Radioactive Ion Beam Factory at RIKEN in Japan, they have isolated calcium nuclei ...

When Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in physics this year, she was the first woman to receive the honor in 55 years. The previous female winner, Maria Goeppert Mayer, was in 1963, for proposing ...