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LiveScience
LiveScience
Victoria Atkinson

What are the 'magic numbers' in nuclear physics, and why are they so powerful?

David Jenkins
An illustration of small particles gathered together in an orb.

Some atoms are stable, while others seem to fall apart. Lead-208 will probably last forever, while the synthetic isotope technetium-99 exists for just hours. The difference lies in the structure of the atom's nucleus, with certain "magic numbers" of nuclear particles making some isotopes especially resistant to radioactive decay.

So what are these magic numbers, and why are they so special?

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