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Question:
What happens when you bombard nickel atoms with lead atoms?


Replies:
Hi Mike:
It depends on how fast they are moving! Actually, I do not know any general answers for this, but I know that people do these kinds of experiments these days in nuclear physics to try to create new nuclei (transmuting the elements) to measure "cross-sections" for radioactive processes (how fast things should decay) to look at new nuclear energy levels and strange nuclear shapes, and to look at the underlying constituents (quarks, gluons) of the nuclei.

Arthur Smith


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