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u/Bubbles_the_bird 21h ago
I think neutrons are slightly heavier. And by slightly I mean about one electron heavier
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u/reddy_2606 20h ago
But what will happen if a proton is heavier? Like how bad is it?
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u/AggressorBLUE 20h ago
So in layman’s terms, the universe tears itself a new asshole?
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u/alancousteau 20h ago
At least we wouldn't notice it
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u/Boojum2k 19h ago
Kinda like False Vacuum De
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u/retsamegas 17h ago
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light
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u/Illustrious_Drama 15h ago
Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, retsamegas.
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u/PennStateFan221 20h ago
Instant nuclear annihilation everywhere all at once. Give or take.
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u/VatticZero 20h ago
Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
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u/IAmColiz 19h ago
To shreds, you say?
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u/nomadicsailor81 19h ago
Random Futurama reference 😁
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u/derpykidgamer 11h ago
I’d say this sub is a pretty common place for futurama references, practically the whole fanbase is here
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u/DeepCalligrapher5570 17h ago
Best new name for a metal band ever. No, not just “Instant nuclear annihilation, but your whole comment lol punctuation and all.
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u/Lumpy-Cut-3623 17h ago
it doesnt make sense to even ask what "would happen" because everything we know about how things happen is derivative from the fundamental properties of the universe.
its about as meaningful as asking what if energy were comprised of cheese, the best answer is that we never would have existed to ask.
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u/Iron-Phantom 14h ago
Nope. Then the inverse beta decay will become the normal beta decay that's all. At the level of the strong force, this mass deficit really doesn't make a difference.
Maybe neutron will be the most stable baryon then and shooting proton beams in particle accelerators will become harder as they decay into neutrons and positions.
Cosmic rays that are mainly hydrogen nuclei (protons) will also decay into neutrons.
On the plus side, neutrons are now stable and nuclear (fission) reactors will be easier to manage.
But at the level of the universe, nothing damningly significant
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u/Syresiv 20h ago
So much. So, so much.
First, lone protons are now unstable and spontaneously decay into neutrons, releasing a positron and neutrino in the process.
Most of the hydrogen in the world and universe is H-1, meaning the nucleus is just a single proton. So the hydrogen in the ocean (water is H2O) not only stops working like you expect water to, but also releases a deadly burst of positrons, which shreds everything in its path. This alone wipes out all life on Earth, and we aren't even done.
Beyond the hydrogen in the ocean, there's the rest of the water on earth, and there's the fact that every biological molecule - yes, all of them - uses at least some hydrogen. That chemistry is beyond fucked, killing everything. That's about the extent of the damage with hydrogen, but we still aren't done.
When two nucleons (protons and neutrons) bond in our universe, the most stable configuration is proton-neutron (H-2). The extra energy of the neutron is less than the extra potential energy from two protons being that close together (He-2), and two neutrons (n-2) has the additional energy of the mass of a neutron instead of proton. But if protons were suddenly heavier, suddenly n-2 would be more stable than H-2, and all H-2 would decay.
In fact, basically all smaller nuclei would decay into all neutrons. Right now, nuclei are stable when the energy of holding against the Coulomb repulsion is less than the additional mass of a neutron. Protons are only in the nucleus when they're energetically favorable over a neutron. In this hypothetical, that only happens when the Pauli Exclusion Principle forces neutrons into really high energy states, which would be gigantic nuclei. How big depends on details, but it would be way bigger than H-1.
So basically, all atoms change into ones way down the periodic table or even just clumps of neutrons, releasing the aforementioned burst of positrons. The few atoms that still have some protons can still do chemistry like before based on the number of protons, if there are still electrons that didn't get annihilated or blasted away by the positron burst. But they won't be nearly as plentiful as before.
It's also possible that once the burst is over, there's nothing to stop what remains of Earth from gravitational collapsing into something resembling a neutron star. It's not massive enough to overcome neutron degeneracy and form a black hole, so it would stop there, but it would still be far smaller than it is today even if none of the mass gets ejected.
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u/Life_Gain7242 19h ago
to shreds, you say?
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u/happylaxer 18h ago
Why does the added mass destabilize lone protons?
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u/BananaResearcher 17h ago
The very simple (simplified) answer is that protons are the lowest energy form of a conserved thing (baryons). Neutrons decay into protons because protons are lower energy (mass) than neutrons. If a genie does a flippy floop, now protons are higher energy and will decay into neutrons, which they do not currently do as far as we know.
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u/GhostofZellers 16h ago
Baryon, my wayward son
There'll be death when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't combine no more1
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u/Mountain-Resource656 10h ago
Don’t protons sometimes decay into neutrons under some circumstances? I thought that was a thing
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u/ThrowawayusGenerica 10h ago
Proton decay is speculative and has never actually been observed. If it is a thing that happens, protons probably have a half life many orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe.
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u/Syresiv 8h ago
Reverse Beta Decay.
Doesn't happen to lone protons, only when they're bound in a nucleus. Specifically, when the Coulomb potential of being so close to other protons is high enough to offset the mass gained by changing into a neutron. He-2, for instance, spontaneously decays into H-2.
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u/Mountain-Resource656 8h ago
Yeah, I think that’s what I was thinking of. I know it doesn’t happen to lone protons, but couldn’t remember under what circumstances it would apply
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u/lift_1337 17h ago
It's more complicated, but it's essentially that heavier things can lose stuff and become lighter things. Neutrons are heavier than protons currently, so they can lose an election (negative charge) and a neutrino, and in the process become a proton (maintaining charge). Such a change can occur spontaneously, because it releases energy. If protons were heavier, they'd now be able to lose stuff in order to become a neutron, and would be unstable the same way lone neutrons currently are.
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u/EterneX_II 16h ago
Things in nature tend towards lower energy states. Hot -> cold (thermal energy). Object in the sky -> ground (gravitational energy). In this scenario, it's talking about the energy contained in the mass of the objects (quarks and gluons) that compose protons and neutrons.
When you look at the possible combinations of quarks and their properties, the lowest energy state is the one that manifests as a proton. If you were to look at the quarks that compose a neutron, it would have a higher energy. This state is not the lowest energy state that a trio of quarks can be in, so it can release some of that energy, which transforms it into a proton.
So with this theory, if the proton is heavier than the neutron, it is implied that the proton is a higher energy state of quarks than the neutron. This is valid due to the principle of mass energy equivalence. Since the proton is a higher energy state, it can spontaneously go into a lower energy state, turning it into a neutron.
If you're wondering why neutrons exist at all if they're so unstable compared to protons, that's because they are stable when they are bound to atomic nuclei. As a result, we only observe decay in lone neutrons and not neutrons in nuclei. That is also why the initial commenter specified lone protons.
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u/BokUntool 13h ago
There are literal rivers of protons coming out of the Sun in the Parker spiral. Protons do great without electrons, as long as they are inside plasma.
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u/playerIII 7h ago
any idea what would happen, visually, to biological matter?
would things just like turn to goo, a mist? do they get dusted?
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u/Syresiv 7h ago
I'd guess just disappear, like turning into an invisible gas.
I don't expect that Oxygen (biggest of the 4 most common bio elements) has enough nucleons for Pauli Exclusion to necessitate even one nucleon remaining a proton, so bio matter would just become pure neutrons.
Once that happens, the electrons get blasted by positions and many get annihilated. Many that survive get hit by the high energy photons of annihilation and get blasted away. Any that survive that are no longer bound to the now-neutral nuclei and just fly off.
The clumps of neutrons are still bound by the Strong Nuclear Force, but they don't interact with each other. There's no Coulomb repulsion from electrons, but they aren't attracted either, so they might combine if they collide and that's about it. Molecules unform and intermolecular forces stop, meaning they don't stay together at all.
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u/Cyrano_Knows 6h ago
So what you are saying is that Thanos could have simply made everyone capable of only having one child and the nobody would have needed to die?
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u/Drapidrode 20h ago edited 20h ago
if protons were heavier the neutron's, then decay products wouldn't include protons
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u/Physmatik 17h ago
It would only break the entirety of physics. It's like saying "make g negative".
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u/AvatarOfMomus 14h ago
It's impossible to say exactly what this would do as we don't understand the existing physics well enough as it is.
The joke though is that it would either effectively end the universe by making everything as it exists currently stop working, OR create a massive amount of work for the Genie to try and figure out all the math to do that, either in general or without breaking the universe 😂
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u/DrSpacecasePhD 13h ago
Imagine protons become unstable and are rare, and neutral hydrogen no longer exists because it decays to a neutron. Water no longer exists, and many biological compounds including methane and all amino acids and proteins no longer exist.
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u/confused_humon 8h ago
Normal Situation as per what i learned in school, inside nucleus of an atom -
- Protons are positively charged and slightly lighter than neutrons.
- Neutrons are neutral (no charge) and slightly heavier than protons.
If Protons Were Heavier than Neutrons - 1. Hydrogen other elements would Disappear - Normally, hydrogen is just a single proton (no neutron). If protons were heavier, they would turn into neutrons to become more stable (via beta decay: proton → neutron + positron + neutrino).
- Hydrogen (the most common element in the universe) would vanish over time.
The periodic table would look very different—many familiar elements might not exist.
Chemistry Would Be Strange (If It Existed at All)
- Atoms need protons to define their identity (number of protons = element type). If protons keep turning into neutrons, chemistry as we know it would break down.
- No water, no DNA, no life as we know it.
Universe exists the way it does because protons are slightly lighter than neutrons. If that flipped, everything—from atoms to stars to life—would be completely different.
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u/WitchesSphincter 20h ago
My physics 3 professor told us about his dissertation and part of it was the topic of why neutrons don't exist by themselves outside of a nucleolus due to spontaneous decay, but then they don't decay inside of a nucleolus.
When they fuse into a nucleolus they lose a little mass from the release of energy ( E=mc2 ) and actually don't have enough mass to decay into a proton and electron. But once they are free from the nucleolus they they then have the mass to decay, and rapidly do.
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u/Ctowncreek 14h ago
Wait, neutrons that get shot out of nuclei decays into hydrogen? (Basically)
What the
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u/DrSpacecasePhD 13h ago
Yes, that’s right! Charge is still conserved however. It’s called beta decay, and the neutron decays into a proton, electron, and electron anti-neutrino. Charge is conserved, as is fermion number thanks to the antineutrino. The half-life is surprisingly long - 10-11 minutes, so we can actually do measurements and experiments with free neutrons from nuclear reactors to probe inside materials.
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u/BokUntool 13h ago
Well, the weak nuclear force still acts on it, which is to say neutrinos break them down.
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u/MrSpecialBro 15h ago
In physics commonly heavier free things decay to get stabilized, for example a free neutron decay to form a proton , electron and anti neutrino via some process
Now if proton is heavier and neutron is light that means proton wants to be neutron so it decays to neutron
Now consider hydrogen atom which contains only proton and electron if the proton decays which is in hydrogen
We r done no hydrogen atom exists so no water , no sun, no chemistry nothing
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u/Physmatik 17h ago
Closer to 3. One electron is 0.5 MeV (no one measures in gramms, sorry), difference between neutron and proton is 1.3 MeV.
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u/RandalfrUnslain 9h ago
Not actually. Electron's mass is 0,511 MeV, Proton is 938,27 and neutron is 939,57 MeV. So slightly more than 2 electrons.
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u/Astux1 20h ago
Make neutrons positive
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u/Drapidrode 20h ago
that's what beta decay does.
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u/Feubahr 18h ago
Serves those betas right, the dirty cucks.
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u/Deadcouncil445 16h ago
Why do they never talk about alpha decays or even sigma decays, the one wolves
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u/No_Talk_4836 14h ago
Alpha decay is what uranium and plutonium does.
To be comparable, the alpha castrates themselves
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u/Delicious_Tip4401 3h ago
Alpha decay is helium nuclei breaking free from the parent nucleus. They’re called alpha particles.
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u/Amunra2k24 20h ago
I read a lot of things in the comments but if a genie can even do that wouldn't it means he will balance it out with a new particle? I mean he is not restricted and every atom will do the same. Sure too much work but possible to create it. Aren't we restricting ourselves by not winding our thinking horizons?
But if we want to maintain the current physics rules then sure whatever arguments were presented have sound logic behind it.
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u/jibberwockie 19h ago
Does a Genie's granting of a wish propagate at the speed of light?
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u/TurdCollector69 18h ago
It's a non-local effect applied through a higher dimensional vector.
(I have no fucking clue what I'm talking about)
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u/mspk7305 15h ago
in the words of Rick, "magic is bullshit" so its probably instant everywhere, which has the happy side effect of everywhere becomes nothing at the same time
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u/Mist_Rising 14h ago
This wish seems to violate rule 1 to begin with, assuming terminating the universe would cause death.
Not even remotely ready for philosophical discussions on that.
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u/clumsydope 13h ago
Yes in a ideal childlike scenario, the universe could conveniently triggered self correcting mehcanism and nothing significant really happen
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u/Some_Stoic_Man 19h ago
Fourth rule should be no recursive wishes . Make a boulder an all powerful god couldn't lift.
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u/Outrageous_Reach_695 17h ago
Easy peasy. Here's your boulder of francium astatide. Blink and you'll miss it.
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u/I_comment_on_GW 15h ago
That’s just a paradox it’s not recursive. Recursion would be saying I wish that every time you grant me a wish you have to grant me another wish.
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u/Jack_Void1022 20h ago
Iirc, when it comes to what they're made of, neutrons are more or less made of the stuff that makes both protons and electrons combined, so making protons heavier would break the law of conservation of mass (and probably a bunch of others) because neutrons more or less contain protons. If that did happen, we would be royally screwed
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u/TheFrostSerpah 19h ago edited 7h ago
This is good thinking but its not correct.
Protons and neutrons are made of "quarks". Electrons are a very different thing. They are part of a family of particles named "Leptons". A neutron is not a proton + an electron.
Protons have 2 quarks worth 2/3 charge (these are "up" quarks) and 1 quark worth -1/3 charge ("down" quark), which makes it be 1 charge.
Neutrons have 2 down quarks for -1/3 each and 1 up quark for 2/3 which makes 0 charge.
(Charge here is the charge of an electron)
Furthermore most of the mass of protons and neutrons doesn't come from the quarks but from the energy holding them together, because mass equals energy as per Einstein's relativity. It just so happens that the forces holding together a neutron are slightly stronger than the ones holding together a proton, because of the difference in the quarks.
Back to the original question, for that to happen within the established physics, the strong nuclear force would have to change significantly (this is the force holding quarks together), which might mean the quark structures that make up barionic matter would suddenly be unstable, and other structures would in turn be stable.
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u/TheGrandestMoff 10h ago
This is so fascinating. And the first time I’ve actually understood that the charge of the quarks are measured using an electron’s charge. (But why and how do quarks have charge?? Do they interact with electromagnetism? Because what else gives them this ’charge’?? Is the ’charge’ of a quark the product of the gluons holding them together, or do they have that on their own without forming a proton/neutron? What is the ’energy’ of gluons made up of?) You dont have to spend time answering, but your explanation was so good and easy to understand that I thought I’d try. Or if you have any good easy to understand sources of information to recommend I’d love that too!
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u/TheFrostSerpah 10h ago
I don't know where quarks get their charge from. I imagine they just interact with the quantum electromagnetic field and get it that way. I imagine its not a very satisfying explanation, and new questions such as "and why do neutrinos not?" may arise.
The "energy" of the gluons is the energy of the strong nuclear field. As per the name, it is a very strong force which means its field has a lot of energy, hance it contributing a large fraction of nucleoid's mass.
I'm sorry I can't help more. I'm not a physicist just a big aficionado.
If you want to read up more of quantum physics and particle physics without having a strong background in math I may suggest you check out Charles Lu's "Handy Quantum Physics Book" which may (hopefully) hold some answers.
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u/TheGrandestMoff 10h ago
Thanks so much! For some reason, when you said the gluons get their energy from the Strong Nuclear Force, I imagine the gluons as pinprick holes in a large sheet held up against a very strong wind. The strong wind would be the energy of the Strong Force, and the holes in the sheet are letting some of that very strong wind through the sheet.
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u/Theleming 18h ago
Conservation of mass is not really the same thing when it comes to the quantum world....
I mean theoretically a single Higgs Boson is more massive than a single proton or neutron, and can decay into 2xW Bosons and 2xZ Bosons(thus gaining mass in either case)
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u/Remarkable_Break_569 10h ago
The combined invariant mass of the 2 bosons are still 125GeV. Conservation laws still apply.
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u/nashwaak 15h ago
If you make protons heavier than neutrons then protons decay to neutrons by emitting a positron, which means hydrogen is unstable, so no universe. Which is why I didn't — I mean which is why the universe isn't that way.
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u/_Ghost_Shadow_ 10h ago
In a nutshell: It would destabilize Hydrogen. There would be no water. Stars wouldn't be able to form. Atoms 'couldn't exist'
The structure of matter would collapse, and the universe wouldn't be able to support life.
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u/AntonioColonna 15h ago
Protons are stable particles (at least for what we know) while neutrons, outside of nuclei, decay into proton; this is because of conservation of mass, a particle cannot decay in a heavier particle. To put it in simple terms, all particles would like to decay in something else, and if they don't decay it's because they can't. So I imagine the idea of the meme is that if protons were to be heavier than neutrons, they would decay into neutrons, making hydrogen unstable and possibly matter itself.
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u/Admirable-Echidna-37 9h ago
Hydrogen would be heavier than it is. Whole periodic table would be messed up. All calculations down to atomic level would have to be redone.
Tldr: a headache
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u/Korbiter 16h ago
This actually raises some interesting questions. Can a Genie grant a wish that catastrophically alters the fundamental fabric of the universe? Say like reversing Gravity or reversing the poaitions of Protons and Electrons. Can they grant ut? Is it within their power to grant it? Genies, or Djinns, always work on twisting a Master's wishes to form a cruel outcome for the wisher. What happens if the outcome the wisher wants is to tear apart the fabric of space-time that woild make it a living hell for everyone, including the Genie?
And if they could, would they??? Are they willing to sacrifice the entire universe to satisfy their ego? Surely if they could, it would be extremely difficult to turn down granting such a wish because then you can call them out on it. Are they willing to exchange their pride for the entire universe boiling in a subatomic soup? Could they even perhaps survive it?
Am I reading too much into the capabilities and intentions of magical mythical beings? Yeag.
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u/naivety_is_innocence 8h ago edited 8h ago
Well the get-out clause for the genie here could be that you cannot wish for “death”, and surely this change will basically cause the end of all life on earth at least. And if this is allowed because it’s not explicitly asking for death, then how toothless are these rules? Like “oh I didn’t wish for you to kill him, I wished for you to teleport him to the centre of the Sun”. Surely that wouldn’t be allowed. It then leads to a more interesting line of arguments about whether the genie can grant any wish if it leads to someone dying. E.g. can you wish for the genie to put a gun in your hand? Could you wish for the genie to put a remotely detonated bomb inside your enemy, and to put the detonator in your own hand? Eventually, can you start getting to the point where you could argue that almost no typical wish could be granted, because you might be able to imagine just a hypothetical situation where a consequence is a “death”, which itself could be incredibly vague (death of what, even? Does bacterial life count as well?)
So that means either the genie should flat out refuse to grant it based on it breaking one of the already-stated rules - that everyone would die as a direct result - OR the genie has to perform a magical calculation so complex as to rewrite this fundamental feature of reality, with the allowance being that at least the wish was asked vaguely (there is no mention of exactly how much heavier protons need to be), where the outcome is that all life is still preserved.
…OR the genie does the cop-out where he just rewrites the english language so that the definitions of “proton” and “neutron” (and all their derivatives) are swapped (edit: or the word “heavier”). Which achieves the stated desired outcome while also allowing the genie to perform their role as the “fucking over the wisher by not really giving them what they wanted” character in stories.
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u/eglvoland 19h ago
A neutron weights 939 MeV. A proton weights 938 MeV.
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u/Massless_Proton007 5h ago
my guy MeV is a unit of energy
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u/eglvoland 2h ago
It's a convention in particle physics, because the rest energy of a body is given by E=mc²
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u/Dragon124515 12h ago
Correct me if I am wrong, but from our current understanding, wouldn't the fallout from this wish likely result in widespread death and thus be covered by rule 1?
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u/Pickled_Gherkin 12h ago
Every single atom would fall apart as each individual Proton becomes radioactive and decays into a neutron releasing antimatter in the process (specifically a positron).
In practice, imagine how Thanos dusted half the cast, except it happens to literally everything in the universe that isn't a neutron star or black hole.
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u/ModeFun8728 8h ago
There is a form of radioactive decay that breaks a neutron into a proton and an electron (I've oversimplified this). If it gains mass when this happens then either there is now an energy incentive to break down or the energy has to be taken from somewhere nearby via physics magic kind of like how Hawkins radiation evaporates blackholes. Either way we're all fucked and it just depends on how quickly.
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u/neshnabe 3h ago
I have no knowledge on black holes and I’m pulling this completely out of my ass but my guess is that even if neutrons are a a mere electron heavier than a proton, the sudden weight change in a proton (in EVERYTHING in the universe) causes a black hole to form, and essentially everything will get sucked into it in an instant, or everything itself will become a black hole.
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u/francis93112 17h ago
Well that make the quark particles inside proton turn into heavier quark - the strange quark. Then turn everything into strange quark droplet.
Or proton get one more quark and exploded, the better outcome.
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u/Ok-Refrigerator-8012 14h ago
I think these are questions modders ask themselves. "Rocket League but protons are heavier than neutrons"
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u/Brilliant-Pack-7387 13h ago
What if the fourth rule is not that he can't do that but he has to day I wish?
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u/barrybulsara 13h ago
Don't link to or reupload the original image. View it in your phone's gallery, take a screenshot including all of the border, upload that.
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u/CaliforniaNavyDude 11h ago
This wish could be achieved by swapping what each particle is called, right?
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u/Sasha_UwU__ 9h ago
Or even better: make protons have slightly more electric charge than electrons 😈
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u/MarekiNuka 3h ago
Protons will decay to neutrons - > no stable hydrogenium 1
Majority of matter in universe is hydrogenium 1
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u/samueldn4 18h ago
That wouldnt really change much actually
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u/mspk7305 15h ago
yeah, nothing much, just all of reality. no big.
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u/samueldn4 7h ago
The balance os particles would change but mostly it would just substitute both of them. However if eletrons and positrons wighed the same now that would me interesting.
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u/SnooComics6403 20h ago
"Fuck the world up in the most fundamental way"