what exactly is isospin?

captain

what exactly is isospin?

malawi_glenn

have you tried google it? What do you already know about it?

captain

all i know is that it is nuclear spin and that it is a conserved quantity like angular momentum

BenTheMan

Why don't you start here?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isospin

malawi_glenn

well hmm nuclear spin. It is a symmetry concept, that the proton and the neutron are treated similar with respect to the strong force, so they both have magnitude of isospin: ½. And the proton is regarded as the iso-spin up particle of the nucleon, and neutron as the spin down of the nucleon.

But there is a lot out there on the internet, search and read and perhaps come back here if you have a specific question =)