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

When building an atom, pay close attention to the particles' electrical charges. Protons have a charge of +1. Electrons have a charge of -1. Neutrons are neutral, as its name implies. A stable atom ...

Atoms are very small. They have a radius of around 1 × 10 10 metres. This symbol shows that chlorine has 35 particles in the nucleus (protons and neutrons), 17 of which are protons. It also tells us ...

Part of Physics (Single Science) Unit 1: Atomic and nuclear physics Protons and neutrons are the heaviest particles in an atom and as a result they make up most of its mass. The mass of electrons is ...

Atoms are the fundamental components of matter, made up of three subatomic particles: protons, neutrons, and electrons. The structure of atoms determines the properties and behavior of different ...

“Magic numbers” of protons and neutrons can make an atomic nucleus exceptionally stable—and a new one has just been added to the existing menagerie that helps sketch a fuller picture of the ...

For four years, James Chadwick was a prisoner of war in Germany. When World War I ended, he returned to his native England to rejoin the mentor of his undergraduate days, Ernest Rutherford. Now head ...

Physicists have observed that a proton’s excited states, or resonances, remain influential even when probed at very high energies, a finding that revises previous expectations about the building ...