Idk how old OOP is, but I’m almost 30 and I never got a polio vaccine. My mum was very diligent getting me vaccinated too, I got all the whoopng cough, measles etc. shots. Even got tuberculosis for some reason, but polio was considered so near extinct that it wasn’t on the list.

(thanks for making me check my vaccination passport to confirm this btw, found out this way that I need to get something refreshed)

Someone else using fortran in research checking in. In particle physics, were basically writing huge, physics heavy Markov chain monte Carlos in it. Just one example.

One of the most disappointing facts when learning English was how many different animals are just called goat or deer

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.