Related papers: Rutherford, Radioactivity, and the Atomic Nucleus

The coming into light of the neutron is discussed. It is remarked that some experiments had already suggested that the penetrating radiation from beryllium had an electromagnetic component, before Joliot-Curies suggested the beryllium…

In the new millennium hypernuclear physics is undergoing a renewed interest, both theoretically and experimentally.

This contribution aims to give an overview of the historical context of neutrino physics. I will present the strong social trends that shaped physics and the way physicists worked, along the 20th century. First, we will see the background…

The physicists of the early 20th century were unaware of two aspects which are vital to understanding some aspects of modern physics within classical theory. The two aspects are: 1) the presence of classical electromagnetic zero-point…

Physics was in crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century because the newborn Maxwell's electromagnetism defied mechanistic preconceptions. Albert Einstein understood that the solution to the crisis required an audacious reworking of…

The year 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of BES and the 100th anniversary of Rutherford's discovery of the proton. In spite of the fact that when BES operations started the proton was already 70 years old and the strange hyperons were all…

Electromagnetic interactions serve as essential probes for studying and testing our understanding of the atomic nucleus, as they reveal emergent properties across the nuclear chart. We analyse their corresponding observables, which relate…

Despite numerous achievements and recent progress, nuclear physics is often (wrongly) considered an old field of research nowadays. However, developments in theoretical frameworks and reliable experimental techniques have made the field…

This is a historical account from my personal perspective of the development over the last few decades of the standard model of particle physics. The model is based on gauge theories, of which the first was quantum electrodynamics,…

Isaac Newton's book 'Opticks' from the 18th century includes several hypotheses on the structure of matter. Most of the hypotheses were confirmed during the 19th and 20th centuries at the scale of atoms and molecules. Conflicts appear…

Heisenberg's breakthrough in his July 1925 paper that set in motion the development of Quantum Mechanics through subsequent papers by Born, Jordan, Heisenberg and also Dirac (from 1925 to 1927) is reexamined through a modern lens. In this…

Atomic physics techniques for the determination of ground-state properties of radioactive isotopes are very sensitive and provide accurate masses, binding energies, Q-values, charge radii, spins, and electromagnetic moments. Many fields in…

The opening of the meson factories twenty years ago provided nuclear physics with new beams, higher momentum transfers, and new opportunities for precision measurements. The resulting changes in nuclear physics were substantial, altering…

The "dark age" of the Universe is generally pointed out as the period between the recombination epoch and the horizon of current observations (z=5-6). The arrow of time in the cosmic history describes the progression from simplicity to…

We study the disintegration of nuclei by strong electromagnetic fields induced by ultrarelativistic heavy ions. The proposed multi-step model includes 1) the absorption of a virtual photon by a nucleus, 2) intranuclear cascades of produced…

Nuclear interactions play a key role for the stability of atomic nuclei and stellar environments. Successful parametrization and models of these interactions, developed in the last decades, accurately reproduce all the proton and neutron…

As we mark the centenary of Albert Einstein's seminal contribution to both quantum mechanics and special relativity, we approach another anniversary--that of Einstein's foundation of the quantum theory of solids. But 100 years on, the same…

In this contribution I discuss a peak in Einstein's endeavor to extract as much information as possible about the nature of radiation from the Planck distribution is his paper "On the Quantum Theory of Radiation" of 1916. This is one of the…

A report on neutrino masses, mixing and oscillations, made in Dubna at the symposium dedicated to 100 years of the Rutherford's discovery of atomic nucleus, is presented. We start with the hypothesis of neutrino which was proposed by W.…

This paper deals with the Physics Institute of via Panisperna in Rome, getting ready for investigation on neutron physics before Fermi's discovery of neutron-induced radioactivity. The importance of nuclear research had been acknowledged in…