Logically speaking, this seems like an impossible concept to grasp. We see and expect things all things to eventually come to an end, from the mightiest stars to the smallest living things.
How is it possible that certain particles will never, ever lose pieces of their mass or become smaller over time? How can they last forever?
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>never, ever lose pieces of their mass
Our best theories of electrons say that there’s no such thing as a “piece” of an electron. They’re just… electrons, and that’s all there is to it. Sure, our theories may be wrong, but that’s where all of our current evidence points.
Protons are made up of three quarks, and there are circumstances where those quarks can change into other quarks or split off to make up other particles (such as how a proton can transform into a neutron and emit a positron while it’s inside a nucleus), but if a proton is by itself, there’s no other particle for it to turn into that doesn’t require adding extra energy to the system. And again, all the current evidence points to quarks being fundamental particles with no constituents.
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