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Unreasonable Results

Avg difficulty 2.5

A frazzled theoretical physicist reckons that all conservation laws are obeyed in the decay of a proton into a neutron, positron, and neutrino (as in β+\beta^{+} decay of a nucleus) and sends a paper to a journal to announce the reaction as a possible end of the universe due to the spontaneous decay of protons. (a) What energy is released in this decay? (b) What is unreasonable about this result? (c) What assumption is responsible?

OpenStax College Physics 2e, 31.7 Tunneling, exercise 8

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Adapted from College Physics © 2022 Rice University. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Sources: College Physics 2e, College Physics for AP® Courses 2e. Imported at revision f98d7a7.