Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The nucleus (seen here in ...

The inclusion of the long-neglected tensor force into theoretical models revises our understanding of ‘magic numbers’ in the atomic nucleus The world of nuclear physics is a relatively ordered one.

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 ...

Maria Goeppert Mayer was a physicist at Argonne who developed the nuclear shell model theory, a pivotal discovery that won her a Nobel Prize in 1963. This year marks the 75 th anniversary of the ...