Nuclear Physics Consolidated Grant

Physicists are firing electron and photon beams at atomic nuclei to crack open the fundamental question of how quarks and gluons—the universe’s most basic building blocks—glue themselves together into protons, neutrons, and all other visible matter. This research tackles a stubborn gap in fundamental science. While scientists know that quarks and gluons exist, they do not fully understand the strong nuclear force that binds them into hadrons (particles like protons and neutrons). Without that understanding, the nature of nuclear matter itself—what holds atomic nuclei together and gives them their properties—remains incomplete. This is a curiosity-driven project with no immediate practical application. That is honest. But fundamental science of this kind has a track record of unexpected payoffs. Understanding how quarks and gluons form hadrons could, over decades, reshape how we think about nuclear energy, materials science, or even the stability of matter itself. For now, the value is in answering a question that has sat at the core of physics for half a century: what, exactly, are we made of?