On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 11:20 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: Try starting out with radioactive nuclei, and ending up with stable nuclei. > That > should swing the tide in your favour. Often removing a neutron from an > unstable > nucleus will make it stable, and adding a proton to another unstable > nucleus can > make it stable, so pion exchange could turn two unstable nuclei into two > stable > nuclei, and produce energy at the same time. This may result in a method of > stabilizing radioactive nuclei. >
By the way, Robin was correct about this. When reactions are considered under pion exchange, where a neutron and a proton swap places in two nuclei, there are plenty of exothermic reactions if one or the other nucleus is unstable (or both). It seems that it is only when both nuclei are stable that all reactions are endothermic. Perhaps this question will interest a doctoral student at some point. Eric
