The world's first nuclear clock just ticked on — and it could help detect a fifth fundamental force of physics

By using a rare thorium nucleus as a timekeeper, physicists have demonstrated the first working nuclear clock, a device that ...
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A 'perfect' atom just shattered one of nuclear physics' biggest rules

Physicists working with molybdenum-84, a nucleus containing exactly 42 protons and 42 neutrons, have found that this seemingly balanced atom defies one of nuclear physics’ longest-standing ...
IFLScience on MSN

First nuclear atomic clock has been used to investigate the properties of dark matter

Back in 2024, a joint collaboration of researchers from TU Wien in Austria and the National Institute of Standards and ...
Science Daily

A perfectly balanced atom just broke one of nuclear physics’ biggest rules

Physicists have discovered a surprising new “Island of Inversion” in a place no one expected: among nuclei where the number of protons equals the number of neutrons. For decades, these strange regions ...
Nature

Single-shot readout of the nuclear spin of an on-surface atom

Nuclear spins owe their long-lived magnetic states to their excellent isolation from the environment. At the same time, a finite degree of interaction with their surroundings is necessary for reading ...