Mean Free Path in Nuclear Physics
Independent particle models in nuclear physics require the undisturbed orbiting of nucleons within the nucleus before they interact with other nucleons. Blatt and Weisskopf, in their 1952 textbook "Theoretical Nuclear Physics" (p. 778) wrote "The effective mean free path of a nucleon in nuclear matter must be somewhat larger than the nuclear dimensions in order to allow the use of the independent particle model. This requirement seems to be in contradiction to the assumptions made in the theory ... We are facing here one of the fundamental problems of nuclear structure physics which has yet to be solved." (quoted by Norman D. Cook in "Models of the Atomic Nucleus" Ed.2 (2010) Springer, in Chapter 5 "The Mean Free Path of Nucleons in Nuclei").
Read more about this topic: Mean Free Path
Famous quotes containing the words free, path, nuclear and/or physics:
“Shall the Spring dawn, and she still clad in smiles,
And with an unscathed brow,
Rest in the strong arms of her palm-crowned isles,
As fair and free as now?
We know not; in the temple of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith, she waits
The triumph or the tomb.”
—Henry Timrod (1828–1867)
“Not once or twice in our rough island-story
The path of booty was the way to glory.”
—Anonymous.
“Language is as real, as tangible, in our lives as streets, pipelines, telephone switchboards, microwaves, radioactivity, cloning laboratories, nuclear power stations.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“The labor we delight in physics pain.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)