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

In nuclear physics, "magic numbers" identify specific numbers of protons or neutrons that lead to especially stable nuclei. Recognizing these numbers helps scientists better understand the structure ...

For the first time, scientists have created oxygen-28, a rare oxygen isotope that has 12 more neutrons than oxygen-16, the most common form of oxygen on the planet. This newly created "heavy" oxygen ...

The isotope lead-208 was predicted to be extremely stable and perfectly spherical because of the “magic” numbers of electrons and protons orbiting its nucleus. When researchers blasted lead-208 with ...

Have you ever wondered why some elements are rarer than others (like gold versus lead)? Maria Goeppert Mayer loved solving puzzles as a child, and she solved that one, too. She also discovered “magic ...

Quantum computers have performed the full slate of tricks needed for robust computation. And it all came down to a little magic. In a pair of papers submitted June 17 at arXiv.org, researchers ...

When two sheets of carbon atoms are twisted to the “magic” angle of 1.1 degrees, many properties of their electrons abruptly change, and the material — known as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene — ...

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Quantum computers, quantum cryptography, and quantum (insert name here) are often in the news these days. Articles about them inevitably refer to entanglement, a property of quantum physics that makes ...

Pablo Jarillo-Herrero tells Hamish Johnston about what happened next after his lab created magic-angle graphene and won the Physics World Breakthrough of the Year award in 2018 Latest twist Pablo ...

SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah professor Adam Beehler's workday included shrink-wrapping a student and levitating another with a leaf blower. The concepts he demonstrates are old, but the job ...