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 ...

The nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus, more than 70 years old, stays firmly in place now that researchers from CERN’s nuclear physics facility ISOLDE have shown that the series of magic ...

Physicist Wolfgang Pauli called her “The Onion Madonna,” after she discovered that the nucleus of the atom has an onionlike layered structure. Maria Goeppert Mayer, the last woman to win a Nobel Prize ...

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 ...