Quantum mechanics explains why the electrons can keep spinning indefinitely. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. An atom is best ...

Physicists at MIT have developed a new way to probe inside an atom's nucleus, using the atom's own electrons as "messengers" within a molecule. Typically, experiments to probe the inside of atomic ...

For nearly 50 years, physicists have dreamed of the secrets they could unlock by raising the energy state of an atom's nucleus using a laser. The achievement would allow today's atomic clocks to be ...

Researchers have been able to initiate a controlled movement in the very heart of an atom. They caused the atomic nucleus to interact with one of the electrons in the outermost shells of the atom.

Two independent teams of scientists have created the first functional clocks that can keep ultraprecise time using the nuclei ...

Nuclear clocks should be more robust and portable than the best available clocks today because nuclei are hard to perturb and are protected in a crystal. Creating a nuclear clock is “a dream come ...

When considering what makes up a human body, a physicist drills down beyond the atomic level. Columnist Chanda ...

Researchers have shown, for the first time with very high time and spatial resolution, that electrons in certain two-dimensional materials only follow the motion of the atomic nuclei with a delay.

This image depicts the radium atom’s pear-shaped nucleus of protons and neutrons in the center, surrounded by a cloud of electrons (yellow), and an electron (yellow ball with arrow) that has a ...