For the first time, the state of an atomic nucleus was switched with a laser. For decades, physicists have been looking for such a nuclear transition -- now it has been found. This opens up a new ...

Crystal nucleation occurs in a medium (a solution, melt or vapour) that is supersaturated with respect to a crystal. In other words, the concentration of the material dissolved in the medium is higher ...

Scientists have provided proof for a new state of matter: an electron orbits a nucleus at a great distance, while many other atoms are bound inside the orbit. What is inside an atom, between the ...

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, ...

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.

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 ...

Richard Feynman, a famous theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize, said that if he could pass on only one piece of scientific information to future generations, it would be that all things are ...

Famously sneaky particles have been caught behaving in a new way. For the first time, scientists have detected neutrinos scattering off the nucleus of an atom. The process, predicted more than four ...

An atom is so small that a single drop of water contains more than a billion atoms. Although tiny, atoms are mostly empty space. The simplified model of the atom is that of a cloud of negative ...

Researchers have engineered a new, exotic state of matter in a lab in Houston – a giant atom filled with other atoms. The team, from the Vienna University of Technology and Harvard University, were ...

What is inside an atom, between the nucleus and the electron? Usually there is nothing, but why could there not be other particles too? If the electron orbits the nucleus at a great distance, there is ...