Helium-3 is the lighter cousin of ordinary helium, helium-4. Its atomic nucleus has two protons and two neutrons (hence the 4 after the abbreviation for the element); in helium-3, one of the neutrons ...

In experiments at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, an international research collaboration has measured the radius of the atomic nucleus of helium five times more precisely than ever before. With the ...

How big is a helium atom? Or maybe the better question is: How small? After an intricate game of particle jockeying, physicists have now measured the radius of the helium nucleus five times more ...

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Physicists, who dedicate their lives to studying the topic, don’t actually seem to like physics very much since they’re always hoping it’s broken. But we’ll have to forgive them; finding out that a ...

In Wednesday’s issue of Nature, a new paper describes a potentially useful way of measuring the interactions between normal matter and exotic particles, like antiprotons and unstable items like kaons ...

Helium-3 is expensive and demand is forecast to soar, so some are planning to mine it on the moon.

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new measurement of the strong nuclear force, which binds protons and neutrons together, confirms previous hints of an uncomfortable ...

In a new study published in EPJ D, researchers have clearly identified particular areas where discrepancies arise between theoretical and experimental measurements of helium ionization by an impacting ...