Nah didn't mean fission, although that'd be even more of an exact opposite.Yeah I guess. I wouldn't really consider alpha/beta decay opposite to fusion though because they're very different processes but they sort of do the opposite things. Fusion increases proton/ nucleon number while alpha reduces it. Beta can reduce or increase proton number while nucleon number always remains the same, so that definitely isn't opposite to fusion!
I expected that to lead into a joke!
Same! Were you referring to carbon dating there, DD?
@XevrossAs far as I understand it, due to the standard model and the nuclear forces, the larger elements can never be stable.
What are your thoughts on larger elements being potentially stable? Is that something they think still might be possible?
They're unstable because the electrostatic force pushing the protons away from each other is too large for the strong nuclear force. At Uranium and below the SNF is just strong enough to hold the nucleus together against the EF. However at 93 protons and above the EF is always too strong and the SNF can't hold it together. Due to the way the universe is and how science works, I don't think we'll ever be able to overcome this.
That is, unless something radical and crazy gets invented which allows us to artificially change nuclear forces. That would be awesome. Very unlikely though.