Are atoms immortal in a vacuum? Do they die naturally?

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Are atoms immortal in a vacuum? Do they die naturally?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

That is one of the many areas that we don’t know. (ELI5 and this may be wrong/oversimplified). There are theories that suggest that protons will ultimately decay into lighter particles. There has been no experimental evidence to show this BUT such a process is built into some major theories that try to unify electromagnetic, strong and weak forces (called Grand Unification Theories or GUT)

This is way into the deepest waters of current physics theories. (definitely NOT ELI5). In any case, even though it only somewhat relates to your question, some are suggesting that protons (and because they make up atoms) are not “immortal”. However, experiments to validate proton decay have statistically determined that the half life of a proton is not less than 10^34 years. Our universe’s age is in the order of 10^10 years. Even if protons decay, half of them would still be around after this universe is 10^24 times older. And there is almost no way to easily illustrate this number and amount of time.

Measured in seconds, a long human lifetime would be 3×10^9 seconds (96 years). If you measured the current age of this universe in seconds, it would still not amount to 10^24 seconds.

The stability of atoms is of course a bit different. Larger atoms are not very stable at all (the largest known ones last for less than a thousandth of a second) and they break down into other atoms. On the other hand simple hydrogen atoms might be as stable as the proton.

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