
What's the heaviest stable element?
Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe
00:00
The Most Stable Atom
In sychi have a particle stuck in a potential well, but that potential well doesn't have infinite sides. So the way that a nucleus breaks apart is that it quantum tunnels from one state where it's trapped inside this well outside of it into a state where you have two separate pieces. The likelihood of that happening depends on the height of the potential barrier and also its width.
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