Extremely rare subatomic isotope decays a trillion times the age of the universe!

Smash-and-grab junk science and particle physics for popular culture. Billions of dollars in grant money. Build a nuclear bomb in your community college science lab.

Or did the captain order the boatswain Higgs to walk the plank?

Higgs boson: The ‘God Particle’ explained

The existence of the Higgs boson completes the standard model of particle physics.

SpaceRobert Lea

1,000 billion times the age of the universe: an atomic decay that defies imagination - Futura-Sciences

In 2019, in a laboratory buried under an Italian mountain, an extraordinarily rare event was picked up by an instrument designed to hunt the invisible. Researchers from the XENON collaboration observed the decay of a ... Read more

Futura-SciencesFutura Team

Researchers from the XENON collaboration observed the decay of a single atom of xenon-124. Nothing unusual at first glance, except for one detail: this isotope has a half-life of more than 18 sextillion years – over a thousand billion times the current age of the universe.

This makes it appear that any nucleus of any atomic isotope might, possibly, break apart at any time for any reason.

Food in a common microwave oven is heated by excitation of nuclear states at microwave resonant frequencies. It is entirely possible that such excitation will cause some atomic nuclei to undergo fission or decay. People who have had cancer or heart disease often avoid microwave ovens in operation and/or refuse to eat foods that are cooked in a microwave. Certainly there is very strong correlation in the first place with cancer and heart disease on one hand and with the types of unhealthful junk foods or convenience foods, TV dinners etc. that are commonly cooked in microwave ovens on the other hand.

Televisions are also, by the way, very strong sources of ionizing radiation.