• LouNeko@lemmy.worldBanned
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    1 month ago

    >Puts Iron-56 in a box.
    >checks at the heat death if the universe
    >still Iron-56
    >mfw box also Iron-56

  • HappyFrog
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    1 month ago

    The lump would still have about 14% uranium still in it. (If my understanding of half-life is correct)

    • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Afaik its always going to have some parts of uranium right? 50% after one half life, 25% after two half lives and it will keep on halving practically forever (or till the last atom decays). In the end it comes down to when you consider it a negligible amount.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        after a certain point, you’re going to get to where you have to split an atom or two.

        fairly sure that’d be far less exciting than normal.

        Edit: i decided to try and figure out how long that would take… and per usual the law of large numbers caused my eyes to glaze over.

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            I mean I didn’t get that far, I lost track of how many zeroes were in the half-life.

            (It’s 704ish million, right?)

      • JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 month ago

        I mean, yes, that’s how it would work if there were an infinite number of atoms in the piece. There’s a finite amount, though, so eventually there will be a point when all the atoms have completely decayed.

        All models are wrong, but some are useful.

      • HappyFrog
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        1 month ago

        Yeah, thats what I was using to get 14%.

        2billion years is about 2.8 halflives, so I calculated (1/2)^2.8 ~ 0.14.

  • Masterkraft0r@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 month ago

    If you put a cat into the box with the uranium and wait the same amount of time, that cat will be dead. this is true. no questions. thank you.

    • FreeBeard@slrpnk.net
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      1 month ago

      The normal lead we know but still special. Is the last stable element in the PSE and there is the theory that it’s actually radioactive (unstable) but the decay is so slow that we probably never see a single atom of it decaying.