Accelerator Probes the Private Lives of Nucleons

摘要

Census data can tell us much about how the average person lives, but they inevitably miss the interplay between individuals, that ultimately makes our societies tick. Nuclear physicists face similar difficulties in their attempts to fathom the crowdsof particles that populate the atomic nucleus. Nuclei contain as many as a few hundred protons and neutrons, collectively known as nucleons, as well as a sea of other particles that bind the nucleons together. The interaction of so many partides is immensely complicated, so physicists have had to content themselves with models that average Out nucleon behavior.