Models of the Atomic Nucleus: With Interactive Software

Models of the Atomic Nucleus is a largely non-technical introduction to nuclear theory – an attempt to explain the nucleus in a way that makes nuclear physics as comprehensible as chemistry or cell biology. Unlike many other scientific fields, the "popularization" of nuclear physics has not previously been successful because many fundamental issues remain controversial and a unified theory of nuclear structure has not yet been established. The theme developed in this book is that the many models of nuclear theory each provide a partial perspective on the nucleus and that the many models can in fact be integrated into a coherent whole and expressed in terms of a lattice of nucleons.