https://xkcd.com/2860

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Unlike an Iron Age collapse, a Bronze Age collapse releases energy, since copper and tin are past the iron peak on the curve of binding energy.

  • @FrullaPapaya
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    1210 months ago

    I don’t know how many of those are legit and how many are humorous

    • palordrolap
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      610 months ago

      First row is real. Second row, not so much.

      That said, the “one big nucleon” is pretty close in concept to a neutron star. It needs a few more nucleons than there are in a single atom though. Just a few. And it’s not really a decay mode as it is a gravitational effect.

      It’s also kind of reminiscent of superatoms - clusters of atoms that act like one single atom - but that is very much not the same. (The nuclei aren’t fused. They maintain regular, sensible, atomic distances. Electrons are free to pass between. etc.)

    • @Everythingispenguins
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      19 months ago

      Can you prove that the collapse due to the invasion of the sea people isn’t real? Until you can, I fully accept it as a real type of decay.

    • @[email protected]
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      510 months ago

      The skull presumably represents the finality of such a decay, given that the end stage of human decay leaves behind a skeleton, something that does not exist in nucleons. [citation needed]