AFTER a 40-year search, physicists have finally caught a glimpse of a rare
form of radioactivity in which a nucleus spits out two protons at the same
time.
The researchers believe the protons emerge stuck together as a pair—a
unique configuration that will give a an important insight into the strong
nuclear force that glues the particles in nuclei together. “This might provide
us with a new way of looking at how nucleons interact,” says Philip Woods, a
nuclear physicist at the University of Edinburgh.
There are only a few ways in which unstable nuclei can transform themselves.
They…
