An exotic atom is an otherwise normal atom in which one or more sub-atomic particles have been replaced by other particles of the same charge. For example, electrons may be replaced by other negatively charged particles such as muons (muonic atoms) or pions (pionic atoms). Because these substitute particles are usually unstable, exotic atoms typically have very short lifetimes.
Read more about Exotic Atom: Muonic Atoms, Hadronic Atoms, Onium, Hypernuclear Atoms, Quasiparticle Atoms
Famous quotes containing the words exotic and/or atom:
“Anthropology has always struggled with an intense, fascinated repulsion towards its subject.... [The anthropologist] submits himself to the exotic to confirm his own inner alienation as an urban intellectual.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)