[Imjustthatguy]

I've seen this question posted on various sites yet I can't find the answer I'm searching for.

What field of study is it to experiment and research on protons, neutrons, and the nucleus? Basically rearranging atoms into other elements? This is what I'm extremely interested in, but I can't find the definition for it. This way I can pursue this when taking up college courses.

Now a little bit about me is that I have to be able to research, and then see my research applied in order to enjoy my line of work. So any field that relates to dealing with protons, neutrons, and electrons along with fission and fusion and experimenting would be my line of interest. If anyone can please lend a hand.

[Hunter2]

What about this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_physics

[Enthalpy]

To put it brutally: fission is outfashioned and fusion will never work. Wind turbines make already cheaper electricity. We only need some rather easy development for electricity storage, and all will be over.

Then you have research on atomic nuclei, but I don't see new practical uses to it in a foreseeable future - I may be horribly wrong.

What we'll still need in the future are radionuclides, especially for medicine. I don't know how much R&D is still done for it, but it's certainly a matter of production costs, yields and transport delays, not of nuclei properties.

It would be absolutely fantastic to produce radionuclides without a nuclear reactor, and revertheless in decent amounts at decent cost, but my impression is that it would be seriously difficult, and that very little research is done presently on that topic because failure is probable.

There are practical uses of a somewhat related field: imaging by high-energy particles. It's close to particle physics, not to nucleus' physics - two very distinct activities regrettably grouped as nuclear physics. Be aware that there are very few employers in this activity.