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News and Views
Nature 449, 411-413 (27 September 2007) | doi:10.1038/449411a; Published online 26 September 2007
Nuclear physics: A non-disappearing magic trick
Ragnar Bengtsson1 & Peter Möller2
Abstract
Well-established models of nuclei describe properties such as shells and magic numbers. But how do these predictions stand up to scrutiny for exotic, unstable nuclei? Pretty well, according to the latest study.
Of the very many atomic isotopes that could possibly exist in nature, only a few hundred are actually stable — just a handful, on average, for each chemical element. No stable isotope exists at all beyond bismuth (proton number Z = 83), although some isotopes of thorium (Z = 90) and uranium (Z = 92), with half-lives in the billions of years, come close.
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