What do you mean potato-like form of the radioactive stuff?

Question: What do you mean potato-like form of the radioactive stuff?
- Keywords:
  matter,
  radiation,
  research
Asked by to Thomas on 13 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by .
- Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 13 Mar 2014:
  
  Nuclear matter has a lot of different shapes, oblate (squashed like a stack of pancakes), prolate (like a rugby ball), octupolar (pear-like) or even triaxial (simply overall deformed). In the end, we mix them all together and nuclei take all sorts of shapes.
  
  fun fact: most of the nuclei are actually deformed! The most nuclei in nature are prolate (rugby-ball-like) deformed. Spherical nuclei are strange ones.

Question: What do you mean potato-like form of the radioactive stuff?