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Okay. I need a physicist. How does that relate to the heat death of the universe. Is all iron-56 the most probable distribution of energy in the universe (max entropy)?
Not a physicist yet, temporarily a high school physics and maths teacher until I can start my PhD
Fe-56 is the heaviest nucleus that releases energy when other nuclei fuse into it. Everything heavier requires energy, that has to come from somewhere else, to fuse. All things tend to keep doing stuff that release energy, and they don’t like to do stuff that requires energy. So, in a long enough amount of time, nuclei keep fusing together while it releases energy, and stop when it starts to require energy.
At least that’s what happens inside regular old stars. The vast majority of them will have an iron core after a certain amount of time.
It pretty much only takes nuclear physics into account though, whereas the actual universe is a lot more complicated and will thus probably not turn itself into all iron.
I didn’t understand this one. Why would any matter eventually turn into iron?
Elements with a proton number less than or greater than iron become more stable as they approach iron, and so, over very, very long timeframes, from random quantum tunnelling effects, will favour being iron over being other elements.
Thus, in 10^~1500 years, virtually all atoms in the universe will turn into iron, assuming protons don’t decay (which may or may not happen).
Please help I tried this experiment but my eyes turned to Iron how can I see inside the box?
You don’t need to, I can tell you what’s inside.
Iron.
