First Observations of Short-lived Pear-shaped Atomic Nuclei 64
An anonymous reader sends this quote from a press release at CERN:
"An international team at the ISOLDE radioactive-beam facility at CERN has shown that some atomic nuclei can assume asymmetric, 'pear' shapes (abstract). The observations contradict some existing nuclear theories and will require others to be amended. ... Most nuclei have the shape of a rugby ball. While state-of-the-art theories are able to predict this behaviour, the same theories have predicted that for some particular combinations of protons and neutrons, nuclei can also assume asymmetric shapes, like a pear. In this case there is more mass at one end of the nucleus than the other."
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Nice, a Penn State co-ed.
#LocalPrefixJoke
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The real implication is that it's OK for guys to bang every chick in sight, but that women that do so are sluts sleeping their way to the top.
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This idea persists because women collectively don't get all that offended by non-virgin men. Considering all the diseases, plus the risks of the man supporting some other woman (willingly or not), this is kind of a problem. We could use a derogatory word for men who run around.
That said, I don't see this changing much. There is an evolutionary reason for women to prefer men who get around; they may be more likely to produce sons who can do so. There is likewise an evolutionary reason for men to prefer women
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There's an evolutionary reason for racism too, but we've made much better progress on that front.
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Wait, so a word that refers to women instead of men is sexist?
Well, I guess I won't be calling anyone a female or woman.
Wait, what can I call them?
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and TROLLED !!
Radon (Score:3)
Make that Radium (Score:4, Funny)
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All I know is that spheres are a lot more stable, but less fun that wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff. Interestingly though, it looks as though the weird shapes may be more stable than spheres.
Followed shortly after by "muffin top" electrons (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the "poor self esteem" and "great personality" protons
Re:Followed shortly after by "muffin top" electron (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the "poor self esteem" and "great personality" protons
--
I'd rather not discuss my atomic weight.
Talk about a sig that sort of fits in with the convo...
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Everything was going great... (Score:2)
Everything was going great for the Atomic Nuclei, until it all went pear shaped.
Abercrombie & Fitch don't want to know about i (Score:1)
If it's pear-shaped, Abercrombie & Fitch don't want to have anything to do with it.
Pear shaped? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pear shaped? (Score:4, Funny)
... the entanglement theory.
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silly prude, a nucleus doesn't have get married to get pregnant.
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Um, my perspective on what he said was he was referring to how men (and often women) gain weight when they get married, not just to getting pregnant. Pear shape would imply expanding out in all directions, not just the front.
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that this nuclei is just more excited than the others!
Which is why I' really like some details about the experimental settings/procedure.
The paper's title is "Studies of pear-shaped nuclei using accelerated radioactive beams": is it possible the pear-shape is actually caused by the acceleration?
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is it possible the pear-shape is actually caused by the acceleration?
is it possible the paper's authors haven't already thought of that?
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is it possible the pear-shape is actually caused by the acceleration?
is it possible the paper's authors haven't already thought of that?
Do you think this is relevant for my curiosity?
Re:have you considered (Score:4, Informative)
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that this nuclei is just more excited than the others!
Which is why I' really like some details about the experimental settings/procedure.
The paper's title is "Studies of pear-shaped nuclei using accelerated radioactive beams": is it possible the pear-shape is actually caused by the acceleration?
The acceleration of gravity causes my pear shape.
Pear-shaped huh? (Score:3)
Reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon set in a haywire factory.
"Professor, the beam has gone out of alignment, the atom chamber is leaking and the datalogger has crashed again. I'm afraid the whole experiment has gone you-know-what."
Reference to Island of Stablility (Score:4, Informative)
For those interested: Nuclei with shapes like this or barbells are significant in solving the problem of filling that range of elements on the Periodic table that were skipped. Ideas were proposed that nuclei would need to have these shapes in order to be stable if the nucleus followed a shell model similar to electron shells. You can read more by researching "Island of Stability"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability
Re:Reference to Island of Stablility (Score:4, Informative)
For those interested: Nuclei with shapes like this or barbells are significant in solving the problem of filling that range of elements on the Periodic table that were skipped. Ideas were proposed that nuclei would need to have these shapes in order to be stable if the nucleus followed a shell model similar to electron shells. You can read more by researching "Island of Stability"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability [wikipedia.org]
Eh, fark. This is mine. Stupid login.
Re:Reference to Island of Stablility (Score:4, Funny)
"Island of Stability" -- Well, it's no Fortress of Solitude, but I guess for a used up pear-shaped Atomic Avenger, it'll do.
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What I find interesting is that apparently we are still not able to simulate a simple system with a few (subatomic) particles. I was under the impression that at least the protons, neutrons and electrons were fully understood, and that simulating a bunch of them would be a breeze.
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The problem is that the strong force (QCD) is behaving really weirdly - in effect a proton is composed of an infinite amount of particles: Two up quarks an a down, together carrying most of the momentum (as measured in deep inelastic scattering experiments), a bunch of gluons which, well, glues everything together, and an infinite amount of quark-antiquark pairs.
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This means we can to a certain degree simulate simpler systems, such as pions (composed as an up and an anti-up OR down+anti-down pluss all the gluons and "sea" quarks) using lattice QCD numerical simulations. But for a whole proton, the theory and our computers just aren't up to scratch. For a whole nuclei (which is simplified by "grouping" the quarks into protons and nucleons) it quickly gets VERY hairy as you move up the mass scale. Many-particle quantum dynamics is tough stuff, especially when the inter
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Rugby ball? (Score:1)
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Some of us are Americans you insensitive clod.
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P.S. AMERICA FUCK YEAH!!!...
all caps count in this case =)
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He should have avoided all controversy and just said that most nuclei have a shape like a football.
That's not pear shaped.... (Score:2)
it's just big-boned.... :D
Fruits and science (Score:3, Insightful)
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So put your hands up if you’re not to drunk to stand up,
If you bombing up the toilets put your man up,
And put your can up spray it in the air mate,
Check out my man, fuck its all going pear shaped
Dr Stoyan Sarg predicted this in his BSM-SG theory (Score:3)
Dr. Stoyan Sarg already predicted such atomic nuclei shape in his "Basic Structures of Matter - Supergravitation Unified Theory":
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/ground-breaking-new-book-offers-scientific-reasoning-for-cold-fusion-energy-248341.htm [sbwire.com]
BTW here is a better article from Physics World:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/may/08/nuclear-physics-goes-pear-shaped [physicsworld.com]