Tetraneutron Discovered

Caid Raspa writes "According to this Press Release the French have (accidentally) produced six nuclei of tetraneutron (nucleus with four neutrons and no protons). Theoreticians have previously thought that tetraneutron does not exist. As there is no electric charge in these nuclei, they allow better studies of the nuclear forces. The scientific article is also available at arXiv.org."

Comments

Re:'may have'

[alfredw]

Actually, the article says they may have produced some, not that they did produce some...
The trouble with high-level physics is that theoritical models are actually built on clay... nothing is ever sure, there are always things you need to adjust, and such...

More to the point, nothing is ever certain in any science. Science can only disprove hypotheses - it can never prove anything. The language is pretty standard for researchers talking about an unconfirmed result. They're pretty sure that they got it, but until it's been checked by other independent teams, no one will consider this a done deal.

It's just like Einstein saying he "may" have had new gravitational laws, or Pasteur saying he "may" have found a way to prevent disease. Both were sure, but the results were yet to be confirmed.

Give 'er a year and we'll have a definitive answer.