Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead

If you look at a copy of the periodic table, you might notice that basically every element after lead is labelled as radioactive. And the vast majority of those elements wind up decaying into some version of lead eventually. But why is lead so special?
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Sources:
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[@uss_04]

Everything turning into Lead is similar to Everything turning to crabs. It all comes down to Shells 07:17

[@oxylepy2]

Omfg. 😅😂😅😂😂😂😂😂

[@Landersama]

This will not get as many likes as it deserves. 10,000 likes someday? Still not enough.

[@MischaKavin]

Well played

[@margodphd]

Brilliant 😂

[@PaladinofRealm]

Sorry to be that guy... But atoms dont actually have shells.

[@General12th]

Ancient Romans didn't reduce wine in lead vessels because lead acetate was amazingly sweet. (It's about as sweet as sugar, but there's less than a gram of it per liter compared to the 200+ grams per liter of regular sugar.) Instead, it's because the other vessel they _could_ have reduced wine in was made of copper, but copper acetate tastes _awful._

[@wfemp_4730]

I don't know, I love the taste of copper acetate...

[@HenryPlays923]

How do you know this?

[@glacierwolf2155]

This officially proves that lead is tastier than copper.

[@bruceanderson7762]

Hmmm😢

[@ZenithWest169]

Ironically that does in fact (technically) means they did do it because lead acetate is sweet. But your fun fact does change what that specific means and gives way more insight as to why it was used.

[@detritic]

This video really feels like it needed that one extra anecdote about how Iron lies in the sweet spot between fission and fusion

[@brassman7599]

I was thinking the same thing. There's a whole discussion to be had there about nuclear binding energy and fission/fusion as well as radiation and nuclear stability.

[@kurosakiichigo7475]

Really? He never mentioned this??

[@spvillano]

Well, lithium deserves honorable mention, largely because it's weird.

[@connerblank5069]

That's my favorite nuclear physics fact! Was coming down here to mention it, in fact.

[@spvillano]

@@connerblank5069as I mentioned, lithium is weird. It will fuse easily enough, but it'll also fission easily and is used in lithium deuteride form in thermonuclear weapons as a tritium source.

[@Michael75579]

I like the fact that "magic numbers" was originally a derisive term but is now the accepted nomenclature, similar to the journey taken by "big bang"

[@Sofie424]

And imaginary numbers.

[@nobody.of.importance]

Was it originally derisive? I could see that because of the rampant misogyny of the time but "magic number" is actually a pretty widely used term for "this works and I don't know why." Just my thoughts.

[@personaslates]

The future is nothing but Lead Crabs.

[@mikeoxmall69420]

All hail Carcinoplumbum, the Ultimate Lead Crab

[@donhoverson6348]

All radioactive elements become lead. All living things become crabs and all food becomes candy so the ultimate endpoint of evolution is lead crab candy. Yum.

[@TheReaverOfDarkness]

All elements above lead are not simply plumbogenic but are also carcinogenic. Coincidence? I think not.

[@tntgolem1623]

​@@donhoverson6348yes, Yes, YES!

[@intractablemaskvpmGy]

Good one. Since different species have involved into crabs separately! Five times! That means crabs went extinct 4 times and a very excellent organism despite that. Like sharks and spiders

[@superkamehameha1744]

Lead is the atomic version of Crabs

[@vbeat8355]

I can predict that this is gonna be an underrated comment!

[@redmadness265]

​@@vbeat8355Sitting here for it

[@Bildgesmythe]

Lead crabs!

[@baurochs2283]

​@@Bildgesmythedont be givin nature any ideas now, dont need crabs walkin around like metal mario

[@tntgolem1623]

​@baurochs2283 we sure as hell do need metal crabs running around!

[@TampaCEO]

I am a software engineer with nearly no education in chemistry. I learned more from this 14 minute video than I did throughout my entire education. SUBSCRIBED!!!

[@SweBeach2023]

No, maybe you understood more but only because you already had a pretty decent understanding of chemistry and physics including concepts such as neutrons, protons, electrons, decay, half-life etc.

[@TampaCEO]

​@@SweBeach2023OK you got me there. I did receive a really good education in high school. But my interest in chemistry really comes from studying astronomy. I have always loved astronomy even back to when I was a child. When I learned about how stars create the elements, chemistry suddenly became interesting to me. So everything I know chemistry, I learned from astronomy. It's all really fascinating stuff. 🙂

[@louistournas120]

@@SweBeach2023 Remind me to send you a copy of the Chemistry book.

[@LiborTinka]

I was a software engineer but burned out and now studying chemistry for couple years. I can say with confidence that even the most boring stuff taught in school (e.g. atomic orbitals) become interesting once you dig a little deeper. But the "deeper" stuff is never taught so people aren't able to make connections and mechanically learn the facts. I often started with questions like: "But why magnesium exists only as metal or in +2 state? Could there be any magnesium +1 compound? If so, how it looks? And if not, why?" ... then I continued on wonderful journey with Wikipedia and only then the chemistry textbook became entertaining!

[@louistournas120]

@@LiborTinka How nature works is a very fundamental question that any human should have. Congratulations for studying chemistry. I am an amateur chemist. Why magnesium is a metal is a subject of the solid state and this is usually not explained at the high school level and bachelor level. I have taken a course in physics, solid state physics but this deals with semiconductors only. I remember that there was a lot of equations and non of them were explained. So essentially, when you have an atom where the final orbital electrons are loosely attracted to the nucleus, they are free enough to jump around from atom to atom. Such materials are metals. The free electrons participate in electrical conduction. The core electrons do not. The free electrons help in heat transfer so metals are always good heat conductors. The energy needed to remove the first and second electron of magnesium is pretty close, so magnesium loses 2 electrons during a chemical reaction. Once it loses those 2 electrons, 12 protons attract 10 electrons, so the atom contracts. It is more difficult to remove a 3 rd electron. If you want to figure out the electrical conductivity, heat conductivity, hardness, crystal structure, this is a topic in solid state physics and it is complicated. I have not really studied it.

[@Qsie]

The fact that Tin has Ten stable isotopes is pretty hilarious

[@Aethelia]

But how Tan would a Ton of those Ten isotopes of Tin be?

[@0w0-YEEEEAH]

Tin ten

[@Qsie]

@@Aethelia You win 😭

[@Impossiblah]

I love that the imagine chosen for "alchemists trying to turn lead into gold" you chose was Hennig Brand boiling urine until he discovered Phosphorus

[@ThirtytwoJ]

Being what he was shootin for, he prob ate the first batch too

[@user-jc2we4sn1i]

See Francois Boucher's paintings of "Bourdaloue" so before one uses an antique gravy remember where a lady from m 17th to 19th centuries had placed it so any asperities could contain traces of her excrement of secret recipe flavors of family get togethers .

[@user-jc2we4sn1i]

Did you see "Neo Seoul 2144 A.D." of "Cloud Atlas" for "Papa Songs Taste of a Waitress Sonmi 451" with a ship in the harbor or see 2020 production of "Brave New World" where protagonists flew past "chemical recovery crematorium furnaces" in an "Aurora" personal jet craft?

[@mikki429]

"It's still magic even if you know how it's done" - Sir Terry Pratchett

[@CAPSLOCKPUNDIT]

ANY SUFFICIENTLY ADVANCED MAGIC IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM SCIENCE

[@Numbabu]

@@CAPSLOCKPUNDITany sufficiently crude science is indistinguishable from magic

[@jesipohl6717]

Any philosophical truism is usually baseless.

[@trueriver1950]

​@@Numbabu the original quote was from Arthur C Clarke, "any sufficiently advanced technology (? science) is indistinguishable from magic" Not sure if the original said science or technology

[@Numbabu]

@@trueriver1950 "Any sufficiently crude magic is indistinguishable from technology" is a quote from Cookie Clicker riffing on that one

[@OrangeeDude]

I'm really enjoying all the chemistry videos lately! Keep them up :)

[@BDayGhostie]

Bro what is this bot account doing

[@iCortex1]

Fr yapping away ​@@BDayGhostie

[@stuartaaron613]

It would be an interesting video to explain why Technetium and Promethium don't have any stable isotopes despite being lighter than Lead. Maybe a reverse magic number situation.

[@grubbybuckets9019]

PBS space time made that video

[@chaosinsurgency884]

What's the video's title?​@@grubbybuckets9019

[@Sirfing_Wolf]

Somebody at Scishow has gotten into a chemistry obsession recently and I’m loving it

[@samandom8772]

He got the Hankfection. Makes you hyperfixated on a specific topic for a brief period of time.

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

@@samandom8772I'm sure Mr. Green will be glad to know he's got a disease named after him.

[@gamtax]

Because NileRed stops giving us chemistry content. 😥

[@aristokatclaude3413]

​@@gamtaxdidn't he recently release a video?

[@gamtax]

@@aristokatclaude3413 He does. Just much less than before.

[@davetoms1]

The Island of Stability is one of my favorite scientific predictions. I hope we discover one!

[@Mr-__-Sy]

and have the decency to name them all the fantasy metals we have in myths and comics, I mean come on how fun would be to have oricalcum or adamantium as an element in the periodic table?

[@xenmaifirebringer552]

​@@Mr-__-SyI'll have some mythril please 😊

[@davetoms1]

@@Mr-__-Sy yes!! Tolkeinium, Darksideium, Enterpriseium 🖖🤓😂 Let's make science (even more) fun!!

[@slimjimnyc270]

I want my Dilithium (Crystal).

[@kraneiathedancingdryad6333]

Yea, though I wander through the valley of stability, I will fear no electrons

[@sydhenderson6753]

Americium 241 is the isotope used in most smoke detectors. It's part of the neptunium series (in fact, it decays into neptunium 237) so in a few million years, it will become bismuth, and a few quintillion years after that thallium (unless thallium 205 turns out to be radioactive with a half-life of quadrillions of years and we haven't discovered that yet). By the way, Indium 115 is unstable but has a very long half-life, and is actually much more common than stable indium 113..

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

In ionization-based smoke detectors. Photoelectric detectors also exist and don't use any radioactive source. And optical detectors are more and more widespread, some areas have even banned radiation based detectors.

[@plebcrabslayer]

All roads lead to lead.

[@swiftmatic]

Noice!😂😂😂

[@paulglawson2866]

Well that’s just plain dumb and stupid: And absolutely brilliant!

[@JamieElli]

I have a lump of bismuth on my shelf. Obviously with that half life it's not going to irradiate me any time soon.

[@theslavegamer]

bro people literally ingest bismuth to help treat stomach inflammation all the time in the form of pepto-bismol

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

@@theslavegamer The bismuth might be safe but eventually the peptobium will make you glow pink.

[@tonyduncan9852]

It depends on what you mean by soon.

[@granthurlburt4062]

I suppose if I said maybe some was mine, you'd tell me it was none of my bismuth. (I'll see myself out).

[@frtzkng]

With its long half life it was even considered stable until quite recently. Same with Tellurium, whose most abundant isotope has a half life in the order of 10^24 years. When it comes to irradiation it generally depends on how stuff it is stored. Bi and Te radiate way too little to be harmful. Even with Uranium the biggest concern is its chemical toxicity. You can store it in a glass bottle and it will block all of the alpha radiation, and alpha decay is Uranium's main way of decaying.

[@seniorbob2180]

"Now before we get to any magic we should start with some nuclear physics basics" That's some pretty hardcore magic.

[@IgorL-rv1mn]

Pretty sure that's a bad idea.

[@SanHydronoid]

Isekai magic moment

[@bigmaxporter]

That would go hard I think

[@CliffSedge-nu5fv]

Heavy Metal Alchemist

[@nexdemise4182]

It's all fun and games until the wizard turns off your strong nuclear force.

[@hanksimon1023]

Great discussion. Clear and easy to understand. In the 1960s, Element-114 was proposed to be the island stability, and some suggestions included a positronium decay path [similar to Na-22, but with much more energy. There were other speculations based on Gibbs Free Energy minimization, increased shell organization, and positive energy generation. ] I don't recall the details, but unfortunately 114 is not as stable as predicted... 60 years ago.

[@tonyduncan9852]

I remember that.

[@jaylopez6450]

That said, flerovium still has a fairly decent stability relative to its neighbors, and we're still a bit of a ways off from the specific flerovium isotope that's thought to be the center of the island.

[@Xnoob545]

There are some way heavier isotopes of elements such as Cn that are predicted to be stable We just need to add like, iirc, 10 or so neutrons

[@edwardz.rosenthal9946]

Wasn't there a wacky theory circulating that Element-114 was the secret material used by space aliens in their spacecraft? Or was that an episode of X-Files?! 🤔😝

[@tonyduncan9852]

I don't think it was that pos. It was another pos. @@edwardz.rosenthal9946

[@CLipka2373]

4:20 - The list of decay products shown has a typo: Radium-228 is listed twice, when really the second occurrence should be Radium-224.

[@caydennormanton9682]

So is the half-life of Pb-209 - a quick search shows 3.3 hours, not 3.25 minutes.

[@robelengida6211]

Thanks

[@steverempel8584]

Fun fact: Lead is one of the 7 classical metals, that have been known and in use during classical times. (There may have been more, but these 7 are the main ones.) They are: Lead, Tin, Copper, Iron, Mercury, Gold, and Silver. All these metals, except for Iron, have a very low melting point, but are fairly rare in the crust. Iron is the opposite, being super common, but high melting point.

[@ernestsmith3581]

And native (unoxidized) iron occurs in meteorites. I'm not sure if native tin occurs in nature.

[@muninrob]

I don't think there are any deposits of "pure" tin, but it smelts & reduces easily enough that it "could" happen through common natural processes - campfires (and wildfires) get hot enough to smelt it, and IIRC the PH required to reduce tin oxide isn't that impressive either.

[@WingDiamond]

In my day we only had One Heavy Metal genre, we called it "Heavy Metal" 🤘🏻😅😂

[@puffin88]

And it's easy to remember which ones these are because they're the ones whose symbol on the periodic chart doesn't match up with their names in English. Why is that? Because humanity knew about them long before anyone spoke English

[@Leyrann]

You're technically missing out on (according to Wikipedia) Mercury, Zinc and Platinum. However, Mercury probably wasn't recognized as a metal at the time, and Zinc and Platinum seem to not have been recognized as such in ancient Rome or Greece, which 'classical times' of course usually refers to. (Zinc was used in India, Platinum in the New World) Other elements known at the time were Carbon, Antimony and Sulphur, but these are not metals.

[@user-pk4hn1uz1k]

Lead is such a great tool in science when you treat it with the respect that any neurotoxic chemical should be given, very underrated element IMO given all the justified fear over lead exposure now.

[@theslavegamer]

Lead is for sure my favourite element, solid its low melting point an mailability are super useful and chemically its so incredibly useful

[@aikonlatigid]

Its all about stability, adding some lead hydrocarbon in gasoline, make it more stable againts self ignite..

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

@@aikonlatigidYeah, and great for the environment.

[@andredelacerdasantos4439]

It's impossible to deny Lead's usefulness as a shield from radiation used in hospitals, but I can't feel confortable defending its use since in most third world countries, people aren't very aware of its dangers, there aren't as many regulations on its use and when there are, its a third world country and no one gives a damn and just uses it extensively anyway. I've lost count of how many times I found this pesky substance hidden in all kinds of house objects, from toys to curtains.

[@StepSherpa]

​@NotSoMuchFrankly nice thing is that it's so stable so even when spread all over it is still stable as lead :D My favorite metal but having it all over is not the best :P

[@trueriver1950]

Intuitively I might have expected everything to decay into iron, which has the least binding energy of any nucleus. Certainly on those grounds it would be energetically favourable for lead to do that. However it's like a pebble on a shelf: moving to the floor would be energetically favourable, but there is no route from the shelf that is open to the pebble.

[@edwardz.rosenthal9946]

A petulant cat would remedy that. 🤪

[@mymatesi]

There actually is, but its a hole other discussion

[@whuzzzup]

Iron does NOT have the highest binding energy. Nickel-62 it is.

[@grebulocities8225]

It is indeed energetically favorable for lead to emit an alpha particle to become mercury, but the decay energies for its "stable" isotopes are all very low, and alpha decay half lives are very strongly dependent on decay energy. I plugged the numbers for Pb-208 into the Geiger-Nutall formula once and got a half-life of about 10^110 years, IIRC.

[@BahKnee]

This video reactivated parts of my brain. Chemistry and physics classes were a long time ago, but this jogs the memory.

[@justanotherguywithamoustac8893]

Because that's where all roads Leads

[@IanGrams]

That reminds me of a phrase I saw once that goes, "read rhymes with lead, but read rhymes with lead".

[@Shreyas0501]

Underrated Pun

[@thomasslone1964]

they should have never legalized marijuana

[@Rylan_The_Scarecrow]

All roads lead to lead?

[@bozhijak]

LMAO!!

[@kimarna]

I laughed a lil when he said not to put lumps of anything radioactive on your desk cos I have a uranium glass vase on my desk. It is radioactive, but barely above background levels. It's not dangerous unless used te eat/drink from or you fill a lead lined room with them lol

[@NotSoMuchFrankly]

You'll regret this in a few trillion years!

[@edwardz.rosenthal9946]

@@NotSoMuchFrankly Where DOES the time go?! 😕

[@mariuszmoraw3571]

​@@NotSoMuchFranklyI think we all do. Sun will turn into red giant.

[@nickolaswilcox425]

ive got an old candle stick on the shelf, picked it up because i always wanted to get some uranium glass and it was the densest item of the material i could find at the time, they also had a tea set, plates and cups... yeah no, fragile and of greater potential risk plus i dint want that many pieces of it... although if they still have the lemon juicer next time im there i might finally grab it

[@Samael1113]

For the record, IIRC there are two, currently theoretical, elements above lead that would be perfectly (or at least reasonably) stable, and are also "Reasonably Attainable". We just haven't officially created and confirmed them yet. (Which you do touch on in the last minute of the video, so there ya'go)

[@patriciaaturner289]

Adamantium and Vibranium.

[@SpottedHares]

What defines reasonably stable? Thorium 232 has a half life of 1.4 Billion years, while Uranium 238 is 4.5 Billion years. Again that’s with a B. So what’s reasonable stable with as old as earth isn’t?

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@SpottedHaresI guess any time long enough that you write the half life as exponent.

[@gregorygant4242]

What are you Tony Stark ? I don't think so !

[@nobody.of.importance]

Don'tcha hate it when you point out something you think is neat mid video and right as you unpause they bring it up? Happens so friggin often.

[@michaelblacktree]

The segue to the Patreon plug was pretty slick. Well done. 👍

[@shimrrashai-rc8fq]

It's worthwhile added _why_ "adding more neutrons" only goes up to a point: in theory, it _would_ work further on, but the trick is as you start adding too many neutrons, that little thing known as the "weak nuclear force" starts getting in the way and causing the excess neutrons to want to decay into protons. So you get a rock and a hard place situation between the electrostatic force on the one hand (i.e. too _few_ neutrons) and the weak nuclear force on the other hand (i.e. too _many_ neutrons) and eventually the two squeeze out all room left for stability.

[@aqdrobert]

The Doctor: We need to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. It's a Time Lord thing.

[@marginbuu212]

Lead is like crab. Got it. Also, met my quota as a guy for thinking about the Romans.

[@watchyourlanguage3870]

Really enjoying this “properties of specific elements” series, wish I’d learned this level of detail in school

[@logan_wolf]

6:16 Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the Valley of Stability, I fear no decay.

[@fredbuckles919]

😁

[@VictorLHouette]

And every cassette left in a car for long enough will eventually turn into the greatest hits of Queen

[@Pro-kesh]

I’m not sure about heavy elements, but with enough time all lighter elements will undergo cold fusion through quantum tunneling to turn into Iron-56. It has the highest binding energy per nucleon

[@garethdean6382]

Heavy elements via a complex decay process will fracture, actually much faster than things fuse via tunneling, so all our gold will decay away before what it turns into becomes iron.

[@whuzzzup]

No it does not. Ni-62 has the highest binding energy.

[@sandman0829]

The best kinds of educational videos are ones that raise questions in my mind as they are going, and explain them all by the end. This video is a great example! Nicely done

[@johnnyrasputin4819]

I love the connection he puts on the end. Something poisonous turning into something poisonous. Chef's Kiss!

[@trueriver1950]

The magic numbers are all even, just as the electron shell sizes. That's because there are exactly two spin states for electrons and for nucleons (collectively called fermions). When you add onto an odd shell, the next fermion of the same type preferentially pairs up with the impaired one, but with the opposite spin. So the same even numbers rule applies in both shell theories.😊

[@vicious12394]

Why is Tyson Fury teaching me science

[@Next-GenNeptunia]

That's your takeaway from the whole video? Lol.

[@GenoppteFliese]

Great video, especially the part with the decay chains is something I wondered about when it comes to radioactive elements you might have been exposed to. This is nothing you hear much about outside physics lectures, so I really liked to see the chains presented here.

[@4RILDIGITAL]

Really informative video, the concept of magic numbers and their impact on atomic structures is fascinating! It's also interesting to think about the possible extension of the periodic table.

[@bernstock]

This was a great episode 👌🏼 Watched it twice! Makes me think of how nuclear fusion stops at iron, any elements heavier than that require the force of at least a supernova to form.

[@radRadiolarian]

everything evolve into crab and everything turn into lead

[@radRadiolarian]

at the end of the universe everything is lead crabs

[@donhoverson6348]

All radioactive elements become lead. All living things become crabs and all food becomes candy so the ultimate endpoint of evolution is lead crab candy. Yum.

[@erkinalp]

@@donhoverson6348and all vehicles become trains

[@Roberto-REME]

Outstanding video. Very well narrated, interesting, educational and very interesting. Well done!

[@Video2Webb]

New to your channel, thanks be to KZbin for presenting it! I loved this presentation, although probably need to watch at least once more to take it in better. Thank you!

[@GRichardWrotten]

With all the usual stories about women’s contributions to science being marginalized or outright denied, this story made me literally sit up and smile. Would that the rest of the world could take notice of such collaborations.

[@edwardz.rosenthal9946]

You may collect your "Pick Me" badge at the door on your way out. 🤪

[@dirtdiggity1714]

We've HAVE noticticed a distinct rash of gash licking, of late. Now that you bring it up. Again. 🤨

[@Alex-vl1mk]

​@@edwardz.rosenthal9946What?

[@Lovangeline]

@@edwardz.rosenthal9946Pick me, what?

[@le13579]

Meh. Re-fighting yesterday's battles. Today's battle is to ensure the quality and replicability of scientific research in the face of funding, political and career pressure.

[@DarthMrMeeseeks]

7:59 why is thallium (81) and lead (82) in the wrong position on the periodic table??? am i missing something??

[@wvdh]

Damned, nice catch. How on earth did you notice that?

[@DarthMrMeeseeks]

lol@@wvdh, It jumped right out off the screen tbh, and i had to rewind to make sure i didnt miss a joke or a reference to explain it. 😆

[@craigschaffert]

Thanks for coming back, we need you, great to see ya.

[@collingallaway5541]

This answers so many questions I’ve had about radiation, stability, etc thank you!

[@Anonymous-jo2no]

Well quick corrections: 1:43 Nah radioactive materials are all around us: radon, potassium-40, tritium etc. If the lump's radioactivity is small enough that it only increases the background radiation by a negligible amount, it's safe. Bismuth-209 is for all practical purposes considered non-radioactive because its radioactivity is negligible and you can safely have a gigantic lump of it on your desk. For nuclear physicists though they compare it with uranium-238, especially when talking about nuclear wastes. 6:43 Indium-115 is radioactive; it's just that it has very long half-life, and ironically the isotope that forms the majority of indium. Lots of odd-numbered elements have only one stable isotopes so I wouldn't call two "only". Otherwise this video is good science.

[@AlbertTheGamer-gk7sn]

Also, indium and tellurium are the only elements with stable isotopes that have the most naturally occurring isotope being radioactive.

[@Anonymous-jo2no]

@@AlbertTheGamer-gk7sn Rhenium also actually XP

[@yar3333]

Also during a beta decay a neutrino is being emitted...

[@Babygirlyouretheheart]

My toxic trait is watching these and pretending I understand it all

[@davidblancoferrandez4647]

lol

[@frosuski]

I've been watching your videos for years, and this one was particularly interesting and well explained :)

[@kats9755]

Big fan of that shirt, Reid. Love a fun pattern. Edit: 13:04 I cackled at this. Good job, writers.

[@A-physics-and-theology-nerd]

2:25 - Neutrinos pass right through this video unnoticed, just like they do through you and the earth.

[@TheOtherSteel]

Video title: Why Does Everything Decay Into Lead Everything either fuses, or decays, into iron.

[@cholulahotsauce6166]

Yeah that's what I thought too.

[@gregorygant4242]

Yep, it's iron not lead .

[@gregorygant4242]

@@studiouskid1528 Yep, either aliens or stupid humans will destroy it somehow. By either creating some device to get energy from the space of the universe that backfires and then starts imploding in on itself taking the whole universe with it!

[@chuckgrigsby9664]

Actually, iron is the farthest up the periodic table that a normal star can go as it fuses atoms. Thus, iron is the end point of stellar fusion and not the result of radioactive decay.

[@le13579]

​@@chuckgrigsby9664 why can't a star go further up/down the table?

[@Saint_Wolf_]

The mouth X-ray thing reminded me when I needed to get one and I asked my technician if he ever had someone with a piercing on their tongue (I don't have piercings it was mere curiosity) and she told me this crazy story of the time it did happen, it was hilarious because the rays would scatter on the piercing ball and it'd just ruin all imaging, and the girl couldn't take it off because it was freshly applied.

[@matthewtoohey4103]

Loved this video. What didn't I love? The lack of a question mark at the end of the title! Here's a suggested topic/title for a #SciShow video: Why Don't (Rhetorical) Questions End With Question Marks Anymore?

[@DavidCooper-ej6rl]

I do that sometimes whilst texting. It's a statement as much of a question.

[@gastonmarian7261]

Saying something has a half life of 20 quintillion years feels like fiction

[@ngcf4238]

I thought Iron-56 was the most stable? at least in terms of decay over time

[@ithasbeenwritten222]

I loved this video. Thank and VERY well done! So friggin cool

[@overestimatedforesight]

This helped me understand so many complex concepts in a way no one else had

[@wumboism]

reid's voice is too good, cute asf too

[@JapuDCret]

you are cute

[@megadiabrous]

he's such a babe

[@General12th]

@@JapuDCretur mom cute

[@EastNorthEast]

Sounds like he constantly needs to blow his nose

[@kylezo]

@@EastNorthEast no, he has extremely robust natural resonance, this is something you would observe frequently in baritone opera singers. he is also a singer so that's a big part of it. You might be one of the few people on the planet that likes bad sounding singing, though

[@frankroberts9320]

VIG-ner, not WING-er. Eugene Wigner was a very smarticle particle physicist. The Wigner effect triggered the Windscale fire (Britain's Chernobyl) a week after Sputnik launched in 1957.

[@Gandhi_Physique]

Needless correction. If you want to correct that, you better be saying Volkswagen correctly too.

[@AquilaSornoAranion]

@@Gandhi_Physique You edited your comment. Was THAT correction necessary?

[@Gandhi_Physique]

@@AquilaSornoAranion I can edit my own comment. Not even the same situation whatsoever. Here, I'll do it again.

[@AquilaSornoAranion]

@@Gandhi_Physique It sure is nice to fix things, isn't it?

[@Gandhi_Physique]

@@AquilaSornoAranion Yeah. If I make a mistake, I try to fix it. If someone else makes a mistake, if it isn't something serious, why would I correct them? It's just obnoxious.

[@FutureAIDev2015]

That was actually one of the most clever patreon plugs I've ever heard on KZbin

[@BitCounter]

This is great. Now to get this video in a loop so I can absorb it in my sleep.

[@garbleduser]

When are people going to realize that time is the original Alchemist.

[@joereed8872]

I haven't watched the video yet and have minimal chemistry knowledge. My guess is that lead is primarily the first heavy stable element and secondarily an easy divisible of higher elements

[@kevincronk7981]

Wow I am fairly interested in nuclear physics and have never heard that nuclei have shells. I saw the bobby broccoli video about the seatch for new elements and remember about islamds of stability from that video, but I didn't know it had something to do with nuclei being organized in shells like electrons. I thought that they basically worked like how you guys animate them, just a lump of protons and neutrons, albeit more quantum-y.

[@Audiophile83]

Awesome video my man!!

[@megadiabrous]

I'm in love with Reid

[@generaldissatisfaction5397]

He is hot AF isn't he!!

[@DFloyd84]

We all are.😍

[@thespacecowboy420]

It is a consequence of the construction of the universe, as are all stable atoms, is is more like a base state that exhibits atomic properties... the atomic equivalent of "brown".

[@TakeTheRedPill_Now]

Very nice! Great overview of heavy-element nuclear physics.

[@xcoder1122]

The quality of SciShow videos vary a lot. This one, for example, is a very good one.

[@markguyton2868]

This just makes me wish we kept calling lead "Plumbum"...

[@vincentyeo88]

Most water pipes in those olden days were made of lead. Maybe that's why the repairman of pipes is called plumber.

[@markguyton2868]

@@vincentyeo88 Makes sense actually

[@davepoul8483]

very interesting amd well presented... look forward to moree

[@paulhansen5053]

Nice video, and well presented, thanks. This subject is the basis of recent work by Edo Kaal and his team, called the Structured Atom Model (SAM). There is a website and book about it. The model is very geometric and purports to have more explanatory power than other models. It's pretty radical, though, so if you go there, hold on to your hats.

[@magubus]

great video, as always! but the highlight was that shirt!!! i need one!!

[@MarkWusinich]

Great content!!!

[@huw3851]

Particularly interesting - I should watch it again and make notes.

[@randomguy9241]

Very comprehensive! I love it❤

[@stco2426]

This is a great video. I wish I'd had this sort of resource when studying chemistry and physics.

[@daydays12]

Just found your show. So good!

[@ASMM1981EGY]

Awesome episode, thanks a lot from Egypt

[@donhitchcock6309]

Thank you. You do an excellent job of making nuclear physics (somewhat!) accessible to the layman. Keep up the great work. I will keep a lookout for your other videos, they stretch my brain, but in a good way.

[@JakeVanWickle]

There might be a typo at time marker 4:21. When thorium-228 goes through is 4 alpha decays, the list on the left says it goes back to radium-228, while the image says it goes to radium-224

[@zacwilkins4344]

This guy is hilarious and communicates these concepts so clearly. 10/10

[@grkuntzmd]

That was fascinating! Thanks.

[@ZoonCrypticon]

A great video ! I have learnt at least 10 new items inside this video !

[@232Gecko]

Great video guys!

[@ZaperSynax]

Amazing video, thank you

[@Kitsudote]

I wouldn't mind having a lump of Bismuth-209 on my desk. With a half-life that long, I bet most Geiger counters couldn't even tell it's radioactive :)

[@tommunyon2874]

My friend and I were cleaning up around his dad's car. When we opened the trunk we discovered several lead shielding bricks that his dad apparently used to ballast the car's rear end in snow and ice. Since this was in Los Alamos we were pretty sure of the source of the bricks.

[@EdMcF1]

This video plumbs new depths.

[@user-eu1zc1xm5k]

Very interesting subject in an interesting style. Thanks.

[@icedragonair]

Got to love it when part of your theory ends up being named something one your rival, who thought you were completely wrong, came up with to explain away your data.

[@cal593]

Hey in case people didn't know, a lot of the "ionizing" trinkets being sold (even on Amazon) actually have thorium powder in them and are extremely radioactive. They come as rings, cards, sleeping masks, and more.

[@jameswasil8961]

Great video!! Thanks! Btw small point,Eugene pronounced his last name as Vigner not Winger.

[@196cupcake]

To build on this one, you guys might want to make a video about some research I heard about in Spring 2021 on NPR. The processes that make some elements, I think uranium (or plutonium?) was an example, are not well understood. They looked at the ratio of isotopes in rocks gathered from the ocean floor, and based on the ratio of various elements, they found that the rocks had to have started out as chunks of uranium meteors several million years ago. If the rocks had been melted down and mixed with other material then it would have had a different mix of elements and isotopes. Whatever it was that made it, we know it must have been very powerful, and it must have happened relatively recently.

[@alexmourier2772]

I've always wondered about Technetium, its such a light element that's radioactive, I think that that element is a very special one as it's unique on the periodic table, possibly the only radioactive element to not decay into lead

[@Adam-ui3yn]

Thanks for a great video ! How the heck do they calculate/extrapolate the half life of elements that are many times older than our universe ?

[@aepokkvulpex]

At 4:20 there appears to be a typo: Thorium-228 should be followed by Radium-224, judging by the diagram