this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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top 12 comments
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Damn bro, how many times has this happened to you

[–] [email protected] 43 points 9 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 hours ago

Damn greedy corporations and their shrinkflation

[–] [email protected] 45 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

But if you don’t look in side 2 billion years later, it’s both U-235 and lead-207!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 hours ago

Schrödinger’s radioactive decay may or may not have killed his cat.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 hours 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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

half life times log2(amount of atoms), right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

Like in inflation: now you have enough money to buy a bottle of vodka, in 10 years these money can barely buy you a matchbox.