Does matter remember how it was made?
Every equivalence-principle test ever run has compared primordial matter with primordial matter. NuQ will build a torsion balance whose test bodies were forged in nuclear fission — and ask, for the first time, whether provenance changes how matter falls.
One question. One material. One chance.
Is provenance physical?
Quantum field theory says two identical nuclei are identical — full stop. A ⁹⁸Mo nucleus assembled in a star five billion years ago and one assembled by fission in a reactor core should fall at exactly the same rate. No experiment has ever checked.
Read the mission →Fission-born molybdenum
Electrorefining of spent metallic reactor fuel leaves anode fines rich in noble-metal fission products. The molybdenum in them is the only handleable, macroscopic matter on Earth whose nuclei were made by fission — with an isotopic fingerprint to prove it.
See the science →Disposal is scheduled
The parent material is slated for waste disposition in 2028. Once it is stabilized and buried, no comparable sample will exist anywhere. The experiment happens on this timeline or it never happens at all.
See the timeline →Test whether the origin of matter changes how it gravitates.
NuQ is a time-limited nonprofit research organization with a single deliverable: the first direct test of the equivalence principle across particle provenance, completed before the source material is destroyed in 2028.
The blind spot
The universality of free fall is among the best-tested facts in physics. Torsion-balance experiments and the MICROSCOPE satellite have compared how different materials fall to parts in 10¹³–10¹⁵, constraining new forces that couple to composition — baryon number, lepton number, neutron excess.
But every test mass in every one of those experiments shares the same biography. Its protons and neutrons were bound into nuclei in the Big Bang and in stars, billions of years ago. If a gravity-like force couples not to what matter is but to how and when it was made — a charge carried by provenance — the entire experimental record to date would be silent on it.
We call that hypothetical charge Q. Hence the name: NuQ — a new charge, if it exists.
The opportunity
Pyroprocessing of spent metallic reactor fuel concentrates noble-metal fission products — molybdenum chief among them — into electrorefiner anode fines. The molybdenum there was synthesized by fission during reactor operation: nuclei tens of years old, not billions.
Separated and purified, this material can be machined into test bodies for a rotating torsion balance and compared, gram for gram, against natural molybdenum. A differential acceleration toward the Sun, the galaxy, or a local source would be the signature of a provenance-coupled force.
The custodial inventory is scheduled for waste disposition in 2028. NuQ exists to recover a scientific instrument from a waste stream before the door closes.
Built like an FRO because nothing else fits the clock.
Too fast for grants
Federal proposal cycles routinely take 12–18 months from submission to funds-on-hand. Against a 2028 disposition deadline, that timeline forfeits the experiment before it starts. Philanthropy can move in weeks.
Too focused for academia
This is a single, engineering-heavy measurement campaign — separations chemistry, precision machining, metrology — not a thesis pipeline. The FRO model, pioneered by Convergent Research, was designed for exactly this shape of problem.
Too public-good for a startup
The deliverables are a published result, open data, open hardware drawings, and an archived set of isotopically characterized test masses held for future science. There is nothing to sell — and everything to learn.
From waste stream to test mass.
Three steps: recover fission-born molybdenum from electrorefiner anode fines, machine it into pendulum bodies alongside matched controls, and read the balance at the nanoradian level for a year.
1 · The material
During electrorefining of spent metallic fuel, uranium is dissolved into molten salt and recovered at the cathode. What stays behind in the anode baskets — the anode fines — is enriched in noble-metal fission products: Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, and Tc.
NuQ's separations campaign extracts the molybdenum fraction and purifies it to instrument grade: technetium, actinides, and activation products removed to background, verified by independent assay. What remains is chemically ordinary, isotopically extraordinary metal.
2 · The controls
Fission molybdenum carries a distinct isotopic fingerprint — essentially no ⁹²Mo, ⁹⁴Mo, or ⁹⁶Mo. That difference is a feature and a confound. So the balance flies three compositions:
A. Fission-born Mo (test)
B. Natural Mo (reference)
C. Natural-origin Mo, isotopically blended to match A (control)
Comparing A against C isolates provenance from composition: two bodies with the same isotopes, the same chemistry, the same mass — differing only in where their nuclei came from.
FIG. 1 — Relative abundance by mass number (schematic; fission distribution from cumulative thermal-fission yields). The near-absence of ⁹²Mo and ⁹⁴Mo is the material's birth certificate. Final assay values will be published with the dataset.
3 · The measurement
The instrument is a classic rotating torsion balance: a composition dipole of Mo test bodies hangs from a fine fiber inside a vacuum chamber on a continuously rotating turntable. An autocollimator reads the pendulum's twist at the nanoradian level.
A provenance-coupled force sourced by the Sun, the galactic center, or a laboratory attractor mass would appear as a twist signal at the turntable rotation frequency, with a phase that tracks the source. Rotation moves the physics away from slow drifts; the isotope-matched control pair, run in the same apparatus, kills composition systematics.
The strongest conceivable local source is the electrorefiner itself: its fission-product-laden salt is provenance-charged matter in bulk. A near-field run beside it — extra pull on the fission-born group, none on the natural group, a net twist about the fiber — is the sharpest test of all, and the reason the apparatus is designed to travel.
Target: differential acceleration sensitivity η ≲ 10⁻¹¹ in the first science run, with an instrument path toward 10⁻¹². A null result at that level sets the first limits ever placed on provenance-dependent interactions. A signal would mean quantum field theory's most basic assumption — that identical particles are identical — has an exception.
Safety, in one paragraph
Molybdenum's fission isotopes are stable; the hazard in anode fines comes from their neighbors, chiefly ⁹⁹Tc and residual actinides. All separations occur at the custodial laboratory under its licensing, by qualified radiochemists. Test bodies are released for metrology only after assay confirms activity indistinguishable from background. The finished pendulum is, radiologically, a lump of metal.
Open by default
NuQ commits to publishing the full dataset, analysis code, instrument drawings, and the isotopic assay of every test body. The characterized masses themselves will be archived and made available to future experiments — a permanent scientific asset recovered from a waste stream.
Small team. One instrument.
NuQ runs lean: a core staff of four to five spanning experimental gravitation, radiochemistry, and precision engineering, with an external advisory board for theory and analysis review.
Noah Harris
Executive Director & PIExperimental gravitation. Ten years on torsion-balance tests of the equivalence principle; leads instrument design, science strategy, and the blind-analysis protocol.
Dr. Priya Venkatesan
Radiochemistry LeadActinide and fission-product separations. Owns the purification campaign, the Tc-removal flowsheet, and the independent isotopic assay of every test body.
Marcus Obi, P.E.
Chief EngineerPrecision mechanics and vacuum systems. Responsible for fiber metrology, the rotating platform, thermal control, and getting the chamber below 10⁻⁵ Pa and keeping it there.
Prof. Samuel Ortiz
Theory AdvisorPhenomenology of fifth forces and Yukawa interactions. Advises on source modeling — solar, galactic, and local attractor — and on how to parameterize a provenance charge.
Dana Whitfield
Operations & ComplianceNuclear material control and accountability, transport, and licensing interfaces with the custodial laboratory. Keeps the paperwork exactly as clean as the vacuum.
Open roles
Join the campaignHiring in 2026–27: a metrology postdoc (torsion-balance instrumentation) and a contract precision machinist experienced with refractory metals. Write to join@nuq.org.
Profiles shown are placeholders for this concept site. Founding-team announcements begin Q4 2026.
Thirty months, fixed endpoint.
The schedule runs backward from a date NuQ does not control: the 2028 disposition of the electrorefiner material. Every milestone below exists to make the science runs happen before that door closes.
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01Q3 2026 — Now
Formation & design
NuQ incorporated; seed gifts received; conceptual design review complete. Fundraising open and material-access negotiations underway with the custodial laboratory.
In progress · July 2026 -
02Q4 2026
Close funding · sign agreements
Full $1.2M committed. Material-transfer, licensing, and hot-cell work agreements executed. Long-lead procurement begins: fiber stock, turntable, autocollimator.
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03Q1 2027
Separation campaign
Molybdenum fraction extracted from anode fines and purified at the custodial laboratory. Independent isotopic and radiological assay; material released for fabrication.
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04Q2 2027
Test-body fabrication
Machining of the three compositions — fission-born, natural, and isotope-matched control — to matched mass, geometry, and surface finish. Balance assembly begins in parallel.
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05Q3–Q4 2027
Commissioning
Fiber characterization, chamber pump-down, turntable servo tuning. Systematic-error budget measured and locked: gravity gradients, thermal, tilt, magnetic.
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06Q1–Q2 2028
Science runs I & II
Two blinded data campaigns spanning distinct source geometries (solar and galactic phases, plus local attractor). Analysis proceeds behind a blind on the twist-signal amplitude.
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072028
Material disposition deadline
The remaining electrorefiner inventory is scheduled for stabilization and waste disposition. After this point, no comparable fission-born material will be recoverable — anywhere, at any price.
Hard deadline — not ours to move -
08Q3–Q4 2028
Unblinding, publication & archive
Results unblinded and submitted for publication. Full dataset, analysis code, and drawings released. Characterized test masses transferred to a permanent archive for future experiments. NuQ winds down, on schedule.
$1.2 million buys the whole experiment.
Not a program. Not an institute. One instrument, one measurement campaign, one published answer — fully funded, start to finish, for less than the cost of a single year of a typical lab.
LAST UPDATED JULY 2026 · COMMITMENTS FROM 11 DONORS · AMBER NEEDLE MARKS FUNDS IN HAND
Where the money goes
- Personnel — 30 months, ~3.5 FTE average$565,00047%
- Apparatus & instrumentation — balance, chamber, turntable, autocollimator$285,00024%
- Material separation, transport & compliance$170,00014%
- Facility & operations — lab space, vacuum, utilities$95,0008%
- Contingency & end-of-life disposition$85,0007%
What a gift buys
A spool of tungsten fiber stock — the thread the whole measurement hangs from, literally.
One test body: purified, machined, assayed, and engraved with its isotopic certificate.
The autocollimator — the instrument's eyes, reading twist angle at the nanoradian level.
The entire separations campaign: the step that turns a waste stream into a physics experiment.
How giving works
NuQ operates under a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor while its own determination is pending; gifts are tax-deductible to the extent the law allows. We accept major gifts, donor-advised-fund grants, and foundation support. Finances are audited annually and the budget above is published and versioned.
A technical prospectus — full instrument design, error budget, and separations flowsheet — is available to prospective donors on request.
Talk to us
For gifts, diligence materials, or a call with the PI:
give@nuq.org
Fair questions, straight answers.
What is a Focused Research Organization?
A time-limited nonprofit built to produce one well-defined scientific output that doesn't fit academia's incentives or a startup's economics — a model pioneered by Convergent Research. NuQ follows the pattern strictly: fixed budget, fixed schedule, single deliverable, then a planned wind-down.
Is the material radioactive? Is this safe?
The fission isotopes of molybdenum itself are stable. The hazards in raw anode fines come from co-located species — chiefly ⁹⁹Tc and residual actinides — which is why all separations happen at the custodial laboratory, under its license, by qualified staff. Test bodies leave the site only after independent assay shows activity indistinguishable from background. The apparatus NuQ operates contains, radiologically speaking, ordinary metal.
Didn't MICROSCOPE already test the equivalence principle to 10⁻¹⁵?
Yes — for composition. MICROSCOPE compared titanium against platinum; torsion-balance experiments have compared beryllium, titanium, aluminum, and more. Every one of those test masses is primordial matter. NuQ varies a different axis entirely: two bodies with matched composition but different origins. Existing limits simply don't constrain a force that couples to provenance.
What would a positive signal even mean?
That the indistinguishability of identical particles — a foundational assumption of quantum field theory — fails at some level, or that nuclei carry a conserved record of their formation that couples to a new long-range field. Either would be among the most consequential results in modern physics. We are appropriately skeptical: the experiment is designed blind, with an isotope-matched control pair specifically to rule out mundane explanations first.
And if you see nothing?
Then we publish the first experimental limits ever set on provenance-coupled interactions, release the data and hardware designs openly, and place a permanent archive of isotopically characterized fission-born test masses in trust for future experiments. A clean null from a well-built instrument is a real result — and the archive outlives us.
Why molybdenum, of all elements?
It sits at the peak of the light fission-fragment yield curve, so spent fuel is genuinely rich in it; its fission isotopes are stable, so purified metal is safe to handle; it's a refractory metal that machines into excellent, dimensionally stable test bodies; and natural molybdenum is cheap and plentiful for reference and control masses. No other element checks all four boxes.
Why can't this wait, or use other material later?
The electrorefiner inventory is scheduled for stabilization and disposal in 2028, and no other separable, macroscopic stock of fission-born metal exists outside active waste streams. Producing fresh material from scratch would require irradiating and reprocessing fuel — politically, legally, and financially out of reach for a physics experiment. This is a use-it-or-lose-it window.
How are funds governed?
Through a 501(c)(3) fiscal sponsor with annual independent audit, a published budget, and quarterly donor reports against the milestone schedule on the Timeline page. Unspent contingency at wind-down is returned to the sponsor's charitable pool or redirected per donor agreement.