Physicists Maria Goeppert Mayer and J. Hans D. Jensen develop a theory of the nucleus as composed of shells of protons and neutrons. It explains why nuclei ...

In 1949, Goeppert Mayer and Jensen developed the so-called shell model of the nucleus. Protons and neutrons occupy particular orbits, analogous to electrons, but they also have a property called ...

Magic numbers In 1949, Goeppert Mayer and Jensen developed the so-called shell model of the nucleus. Protons and neutrons occupy particular orbits, analogous to electrons, but they also have a ...

The shell model also flew in the face of ideas that the nucleus is like a soup or blob of protons and neutrons.

Paralleling the idea of electron shells in atomic physics, in 1949 scientists proposed the nuclear shell model: protons and neutrons sit in distinct nuclear shells, and additional energy input can ...

In this nucleus -- what we call a doubly magic nucleus -- a jump from shell to shell requires emission or absorption of large amounts of energy.

As is the case with electrons, the averaged-field model predicts the existence of shells within the nucleus -- shells with the greatest probability of a proton or a neutron being found there.

It is therefore termed “doubly magic” and is extremely stable. Other magic numbers include 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 and 126. However, there are significant exceptions to this shell model of the nucleus and ...

The nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus, more than 70 years old, stays firmly in place now that researchers from CERN’s nuclear physics facility ISOLDE have shown that the series of magic ...