To put one of physicists’ most important theories to the test, scientists go to extremes. Extremely strong electromagnetic fields, that is.
To probe QED’s prowess, Lötzsch and colleagues turned to uranium, which has a whopping 92 protons in its nucleus. That nucleus has a correspondingly mighty electric field, almost a million times that of a hydrogen nucleus, and much stronger than any field that can be produced by humankind. The tests used uranium that had been stripped of all but two of its normal swarm of 92 electrons to form an ion, or electrically charged atom.
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