Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead

20 thoughts on “Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead”

1. There's a scientist exploring the magic elements that you haven't covered: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUISyblUIfo&ab_channel=BarryManilow

   Reply

2. It's true! I've seen it happen! After my son was born, and the ex left and started getting paid, I watched her ass getting bigger and heavier month after month, year after year. This is the only thing that could explain it.

   Reply

3. goo goo gaga. yawn.

   Reply

4. Why is every animal an mouse?

   Reply

5. Why should certain numbers of protons be more stable than others? Moreover, why is there a limit to how massive an element can be? Why can't they potentially have 1000s and 1000s of nucleons?

   First of all, calling these specific numbers of protons "magic numbers" doesn't explain anything. It's merely noticing that there's something we don't understand. I not a physicist or a chemist, but I am a "scientist" because I study science and I do science as well (just not professionally), and I think everyone should be a scientist in that sense too. Therefore, I have enough education to understand some things, and has emboldened me to make a few educated guesses as to what might be able to explain the 2 observations stated at the beginning that goes beyond simply noticing that there's a "there" there.

   To start with, I believe it really comes down to conservation of energy. We already know it is a principle that all systems tend to taken on the lowest energy state available to them, which is just another way of saying tend toward the most stable state, and this will basically always happen given enough time. I think the answer that why this is true is very apparent, and we more or less understand that this is because there's no such thing as free energy, which means that energy can't come from nowhere, but we have to do better than this if we want to truly explain why this in a fundamental way. If we are keeping conservation of energy in mind, we can also notice that composite molecules and chemical compounds also appear to be subject to the laws governing the behavior of the nucleons, because we know that elements cannot combine in just any way, only specific ways, and we know that the structure and orientation of a molecule is far from insignificant and cannot be ignored, and therefore it seems obvious that the internal geometry of a composite and its sub-parts holds the key to evolving our understanding. Only certain configurations of constituent particles can produce geometries where internal forces are in balance, and just as a chair with too few legs will fall down, or a bridge which is too extended will collapse under it's own weight, so too will an atom with nucleons which are not oriented in just the right way, and if you try to force the particles into a less than ideal arrangement, they will either refuse to come together to begin with, or the "extra parts" will be thrown out.

   Since the true nature of the atom's internal structure still eludes us, we have not been able to understand if indeed this could give us a real explanation. I really think there might be something there, though. It would be quite exciting to find out that I'm actually on to something, but even that wouldn't be as exciting as learning that something even more profound and unimaginable is going on.

   Reply

6. Everything become crab

   Everything become lead

   Reply

7. Lots of good info here but for me (an educated layman) the info is presented too fast, way faster than in a college physics lecture. Please slow down.

   Reply

8. why is lead peanut butter?

   Reply

9. Also,

   The stability of nuclei decreases greatly with the increase in atomic number after curium, element 96, so that all isotopes with an atomic number above 101 decays radioactively with a half-life under a day. No elements with atomic numbers above 82 (after lead) have stable isotopes. Nevertheless, because of reasons not very well understood yet, there is a slight increased nuclear stability around atomic numbers 110–114, which leads to the appearance of what is known in nuclear physics as the "island of stability". This concept, proposed by University of California professor Glenn Seaborg, explains why superheavy elements last longer than predicted.

   Calculations according to the Hartree–Fock–Bogoliubov method using the non-relativistic Skyrme interaction have proposed Z = 126 as a closed proton shell. In this region of the periodic table, N = 184, N = 196, and N = 228 have been suggested as closed neutron shells. Therefore, the isotopes of most interest are 310-126, 322-126, and 354-126, for these might be considerably longer-lived than other isotopes. Element 126, having a magic number of protons, is predicted to be more stable than other elements in this region, and may have nuclear isomers with very long half-lives. It is also possible that the island of stability is instead centered at 306-122, which may be spherical and doubly magic. Probably, the island of stability occurs around Z = 114–126 and N = 184, with lifetimes probably around hours to days. Beyond the shell closure at N = 184, spontaneous fission lifetimes should drastically drop below 10^−15 seconds – too short for a nucleus to obtain an electron cloud and participate in any chemistry. That being said, such lifetimes are very model-dependent, and predictions range across many orders of magnitude.

   Taking nuclear deformation and relativistic effects into account, an analysis of single-particle levels predicts new magic numbers for superheavy nuclei at Z = 126, 138, 154, and 164 and N = 228, 308, and 318. Therefore, in addition to the island of stability centered at 291-Cn, 293-Cn, and 298-Fl, further islands of stability may exist around the doubly magic 354-126 as well as 472-164 or 482-164. These nuclei are predicted to be beta-stable and decay by alpha emission or spontaneous fission with relatively long half-lives and confer additional stability on neighboring N = 228 isotones and elements 152–168, respectively. On the other hand, the same analysis suggests that proton shell closures may be relatively weak or even nonexistent in some cases such as 354-126, meaning that such nuclei might not be doubly magic, and stability will instead be primarily determined by strong neutron shell closures. Additionally, due to the enormously greater forces of electromagnetic repulsion that must be overcome by the strong force at the second island (Z = 164), it is possible that nuclei around this region only exist as resonances and cannot stay together for a meaningful amount of time. It is also possible that some of the superactinides between these series may not actually exist because they are too far from both islands, in which case the periodic table might end around Z = 130. Interestingly, the area of elements 121–156 where periodicity is in abeyance is quite similar to the gap between the two islands.

   Beyond element 164, the fissility line defining the limit of stability with respect to spontaneous fission may converge with the neutron drip line, posing a limit to the existence of heavier elements. Nevertheless, further magic numbers have been predicted at Z = 210, 274, and 354 and N = 308, 406, 524, 644, and 772, with two beta-stable doubly magic nuclei found at 616-210 and 798-274; the same calculation method reproduced the predictions for 298-Fl and 472-164. (The doubly magic nuclei predicted for Z = 354 are beta-unstable, with 998-354 being neutron-deficient and 1126-354 being neutron-rich.) Although additional stability toward alpha decay and fission are predicted for 616-210 and 798-274, with half-lives up to hundreds of microseconds for 616-210, there will not exist islands of stability as significant as those predicted at Z = 114 and 164. As the existence of superheavy elements is very strongly dependent on stabilizing effects from closed shells, nuclear instability and fission will likely determine the end of the periodic table beyond these islands of stability.

   In some regions of the table of nuclides, there are expected to be additional regions of stability due to non-spherical nuclei that have different magic numbers than spherical nuclei do; the egg-shaped 270-Hs (Z = 108, N = 162) is one such deformed doubly magic nucleus. In the superheavy region, the strong Coulomb repulsion of protons may cause some nuclei, including isotopes of oganesson, to assume a bubble shape in the ground state with a reduced central density of protons, unlike the roughly uniform distribution inside most smaller nuclei. Such a shape would have a very low fission barrier, however. Even heavier nuclei in some regions, such as 342-136 and 466-156, may instead become toroidal or red blood cell-like in shape, with their own magic numbers and islands of stability, but they would also fragment easily.

   Reply

10. Everything ends in either crabs, trains, or lead in this universe

    Reply

11. So does everything have a radioactive decay..

    Reply

12. Jesus is God & He loves you

    Jesus will soon be seen by all men, women, and children in the clouds. Jesus is returning now! Believe and be saved.

    Exodus 3:14 (God speaking)
    
    And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

    John 8:58 (Jesus speaking)
    
    Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

    John 10:30 (Jesus speaking)
    
    I and my Father are one.

    Isaiah 9:6
    
    For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

    Matthew 1:23
    
    Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

    John 1:1 & 14
    
    1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
    
    14 And the Word was made flesh (Lord Jesus), and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

    John 8:24 (Jesus speaking)
    
    I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

    John 14:9 (Jesus speaking)
    
    Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?

    Hebrews 1:1-3, & 8 (God calls His Son "O God" because Jesus IS God in the flesh)
    
    1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
    
    2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
    
    3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
    
    8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

    1 John 5:7
    
    For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

    Titus 2:13
    
    Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

    Revelation 1:7
    
    Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.

    Isaiah 44:6 (God speaking)
    
    Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

    Revelation 1:8 (Jesus speaking)
    
    I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

    Revelation 22:13 (Jesus speaking)
    
    I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

    —

    There Are None Righteous / How To Be Saved

    Romans 3:10 & 23
    
    10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
    
    23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

    Luke 5:31-32 (Jesus speaking)
    
    31 And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
    
    32 I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

    1 Peter 3:18 (The word “quicken” means “to make alive”)
    
    For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

    Romans 10:9
    
    That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

    Acts 4:12
    
    Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

    Ephesians 2:8-9
    
    8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:::::::::::::::::
    
    9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

    Repent of your sins or suffer the consequences. Lord Jesus died in our places personally to take the death punishment that sin deserves and then resurrected by the power of God. Believe this and sincerely repent of your sins each time you sin and you will have eternal life and nothing to fear. Fail to repent and you will end up in the Lake of Fire.

    Reply

13. Fun Fact: We DID finally manage to turn Lead into Gold… Problem is, it's a radioactive variant is Gold 😅
    Even then, I don't think it was stable. So considering those two things, it's not making anyone rich, nor will it allow us to plate everything in a protective Gold layer. 🫤

    Reply

14. I'm really enjoying all the chemistry videos lately! Keep them up 🙂

    Reply

15. Correct me if I'm wrong, but on a long enough time scale, even the none radioactive atoms like oxygen, will eventually turn into lead? I thought I heard once or twice that everything eventually becomes lead.

    Reply

16. I have a question can we find elements we dont know through equations.

    Reply

17. I still wonder why every element inside stars is trying to get to iron

    Reply

18. Is every neutron star an atom of a unique element? A really, really big atom?

    Reply

19. It also keeps your drink cold or warm and your throats quenched. -Stanley

    Reply

20. "It's Magic, ya knoooow / Never believe it's not soooo"

    – Flint Water

    Reply