Status Updates From Destroyer of Worlds: The De...

‘—“the most beautiful in the world”—nucleus of a lithium atom : three protons and four neutrons. Add one proton—and you have four of each or, which is what Rutherford—saw, two of each, twice—two alpha particles, the nuclei of helium atoms. The protons—hit the lithium nuclei—split them clean in two. Lithium—hydrogen and helium, made in the Big Bang. After 13.7 billion years—the first to be cleft by human ingenuity.’