• niktemadur@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Then watch all protons suddenly burp out a couple of leptons and a photon, instantly decay into some other lower mass thingy.

    • Affine Connection@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      As long as protons are the lowest mass baryon, there is nothing for them to decay to (barring violation of baryon number conservation).

      • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        But surely with a higher mass, they’ll be - to quote C3PO here - not entirely stable, with a new lower mass and that particle having another name.