# Is there a scientific explanation for stabilizing atoms?



## OzonE (Sep 20, 2014)

so in my latest story, stabilizing Radioactive atoms makes humanity go nuts; creates a vicious race of Ice monsters, and  makes the climate go very very cold. 
how can i explain this setting? is there any other way to make this kind of apocalypse happen?


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## psychotick (Sep 20, 2014)

Hi,

Stabilizing radioactive atoms? What does this even mean? If you want atoms to go from being unstable as in Uranium 235 to stable as in lead you simply let them react to completion. That means fission - i.e. big bangs if the urnium is properly centrifuged so that the more reactive isotopes are concentrate, lots of radiation released, but ultimately after fission has completed you have very stable atoms.

For the climate to go very cold, one example of how this could be done is a nuclear winter, where the dust from the detonations is released high up into the atmosphere to block out a portion - large or small - of the sunlight. A variation of this is what killed off the dinosaurs, save that the dust was instead kicked up by an asteroid impact.

Ice monsters and general nuttiness? No idea.

Cheers, Greg.

If


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## Svrtnsse (Sep 20, 2014)

Another way may be to freeze the atoms down to absolute zero (0 Kelvin). At this temperature even the atoms themselves freeze and stop moving, so in a way you could call them stable then. On the other hand, nothing else would be able to move at this temperature either.

Maybe not such a good idea after all...


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## OzonE (Sep 21, 2014)

i know, but the science behind the story isnt the point, its just what starts the story, describes the setting. the story itself is about an antihero who finds a moral compass. 
in the distant future humanity runs out of Uranium and other sources of radioactive elements. so the decide to "Make" more fuel for the nuclear facilities, so they start tinkering with atoms to make them suitable for that use.
the Iridium element proves to be a real good replacement for Uranium, so they break its structure and make a New element. 
they wanted to never run out of Iridium-N again, so they Inject the atoms inside Live Cells, and they start growing and make more Iridum.  and so... *rest of the story goes here*
"failed experiment" was an overused cliche, so i decided to get creative with radioactive atoms. 
i dont know if this is convincing. 
do you guys have any other ideas?


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## psychotick (Sep 21, 2014)

Hi,

You can't grow atoms - radioactive or otherwise in living cells. But if you want energy having run out of radioactive elements, turn to fusion. All you need is hydrogen. (Plus a magnetic containment vessel and massive lasers to start the reaction - both of which are just a little bit beyond our present level of tech.) There shouldn't be any radioctive emmissions from the process and it wouldn't explode or meltdown either.

However if you want to do something that tinkers with human DNA to create mutants, you might turn to hydrogen powered cars. The hydrogen comes from water which is released through electrolysis. To make the process more energy efficient a catalist may be used. It wouldn't be inconceivable that a super catalyst was invented that turned out after years of use to be mutagenic.

As for your nuclear winter type scenario, I can't think of a way that that would be caused through this. But it is possible that an attempt to reduce the effect of the greenhouse effect, went horribly wrong. Or perhaps an attempt to fix the ozone depletion problem. Anything that blocks or somehow limits the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Terry Greer (Sep 22, 2014)

You could in theory have a phase transition that would affect some of the fundamental universal constants - such as the ones that affect  atomic decay.
Physicists Say Universe Might Be About To Collapse
BUT
You really would need to research it deeply and understand (or at least extrapolate) the effect this would have on other processes as well.
In short if you want to play science fiction this deep you need to put a lot of effort in to make it believable. 
It's the sort of stuff I love to see in SF - but I expect the writer to have done his homework impeccably.

Good examples of this genre approach include 'Moving Mars' by greg bear where the protagonists manage to figure out how to alter the basic properties and information stored within each and every atom. (AN excellent hard0science book with big ideas).

Or Pohl Anderson's Brainwave' - where the Earth has been in a electromagnetic filed that has damped the way that nerve cells work for millions of years - and now it's just leaving it with EVERY creature on earth sudden;y having its IQ raised an order f magnitude - along with the consequences of this: Brain Wave - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## OzonE (Oct 2, 2014)

so How about this. 
Countries begin releasing a Substance called US7 into the atmosphere to cool off the earth, (global warming and all) but after a few years due to over-injecting this substance the earth goes into a permanent winter phase, long exposure to sunlight causes the US7 to break its structure (like ozone that breaks and gets recreated again) and fall down at night, causing a mutating snowstorm to pass the cities at night. 

is that convincing enough? 
thanks guys you've been a great help


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