The fact that the neutron is slightly more massive than the proton is the reason why atomic nuclei have exactly those properties that make our world and ultimately our existence possible. Eighty years ...

The next time you step on bathroom scales, remember that it’s not your big bone structure or that extra helping of pudding that makes you heavy, it’s the motion of the quarks and gluons buzzing around ...

When it comes to weighty matters, quarks and gluons rule the universe, a new study confirms. One of the largest computational efforts to calculate the masses of protons and neutrons shows that the ...

Protons are tiny particles just a femtometer across, but without them, atoms wouldn't exist. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

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 ...

A new study suggests that the positively charged particles may have an outsize influence on the properties of neutron stars and other neutron-rich objects. Neutron stars are the smallest, densest ...

The whole is equal to the sum of its constituent parts. That's how everything works, from galaxies to planets to cities to molecules to atoms. If you take all the components of any system and look at ...

If you were to divide the particles that made up your body into smaller and smaller bits, you'd find that at every step along the way -- at least in terms of mass -- the whole was equal to the sum of ...

Protons in neutron-rich nuclei have a higher average energy than previously thought, according to a new analysis of electron scattering data that was first collected in 2004. The research appears to ...

Through mass measurements of silicon-22 combined with theoretical calculations, researchers have revealed that silicon-22 possesses a double-magic structure similar to that of oxygen-22, while also ...