When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. How long is the lifespan of a free neutron? Different experiments provide contradicting answers.

A few days ago I wrote about how different measurements of the Hubble parameter gave results that didn't quite agree. It's not the only example of such an experimental disagreement. In fact, one of ...

Nuclear puzzle: In the nucleus, neutrons can be stable, but free neutrons decay after a short period. Exactly how short is in dispute because experiments on neutrons stored in bottles and neutrons in ...

An international team of researchers recently measured the lifetime of a neutron outside of an atomic nucleus with extraordinary precision. By their measurements, the neutron survived for 14.629 ...

Neutrons are among the basic building blocks of matter. As long as they are part of a stable atomic nucleus, they can stay there for arbitrary periods of time. However, the situation is different for ...

New research has enhanced scientists' understanding of how free neutrons decay into other particles. The work provides the first measurement of the energy spectrum of the photons that are released in ...

When physicists strip neutrons from atomic nuclei, put them in a bottle, then count how many remain there after some time, they infer that neutrons radioactively decay in 14 minutes and 39 seconds, on ...

A free neutron outside a nucleus is not stable. It undergoes beta decay at a probability. Over time, the number of free neutrons decreases exponentially at a time constant, which is called the neutron ...

Neutron stars are some of the weirdest cosmic objects, and the greatest mysteries lie deep in their hearts.

A physics experiment performed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has enhanced scientists' understanding of how free neutrons decay into other particles. The work provides ...