Word: nuclei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
RESEARCHERS who sunk billions of dollars in hopes of producing energy by nuclear fusion must be kicking themselves. Until recently, conventional wisdom in the physics world had it that the only way to feasibly derive energy from a controlled fusion reaction was to subject hydrogen nuclei to extreme pressures and temperatures of millions of degrees...
...Gregor Mendel, an Austrian monk. In 1865, after studying the flower colors and other characteristics of many generations of pea plants, Mendel formulated the laws of heredity and suggested the existence of packets of genetic information, which became known as genes. Soon afterward, chromosomes were observed in the nuclei of dividing cells, and scientists later discovered a chromosomal difference between the sexes. One chromosome, which they named Y, was found in human males' cells, together with another, called X. Females' cells, on the other hand, had two copies...
...fifty-fifty chance of being deflected when streaming through 100 million miles of solid steel. The young physicists used the powerful accelerator in Brookhaven, L.I., to produce and aim a flood of protons at a beryllium metal target. The stupendous collisions of protons slamming into the barrier shattered atomic nuclei, releasing new particles, including neutrinos. The particles then hit a wall of steel that absorbed all but a single beam, which carried billions of neutrinos into a + detector. Studying the debris at 3 o'clock one morning, Lederman found the footprints of a high-energy muon. Not only...
...every physics student learns, there are four known forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, a "strong" force that binds atomic nuclei and a "weak" one that governs certain types of radioactive decay. Last week researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory announced that they may have found the best evidence yet for a hypothetical, elusive "fifth force." If confirmed, their findings could mean that Sir Isaac Newton's famous inverse- square law of gravity* is in danger of losing the exalted position it has held for three centuries. "It's like saying Mom and apple pie's no good anymore," admits...
...just the atoms that are touching, as in a white dwarf, but their nuclei. Under the immense pressure, the electrons, no longer able to repel one another, are squeezed into the nuclei, which ordinarily contain just protons and neutrons. In about a thousandth of a second, the negatively charged electrons combine with positively charged protons to form additional neutrons; the process also produces the ethereal neutrinos, which effortlessly zip through the star's outer layers and into space. Under these circumstances, there is a limit to how much the neutrons can be compressed. As gravity tightens its grip further...