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by gigatexal 642 days ago
tangentially: is it consensus at this point that the proton decays -- it just does so on a really large timescale?
1 comments

No it would be very hard to actually have a consensus on proton decay. If it decays then according to the measurements (or the limits on the lack of the measurement) lifetime of such decay will be more than the universe age (Even without all the puzzle about Hubble constant tension and age of universe measurement disagreements). It was predicted first time by SU(5) theory and many other theories since then but the experiments rules out some of them (including original SU(5)) [1]

I would be personally interested in proton decay as it could be indirect indication for magnetic monopoles [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_decay?useskin=vector#Pr...

[2] https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.52...

thank you! -- I meant more that is it consensus that those that know or would need to know think it should/does even if it's not been observed or proven to needfully do so (or disproven, if possible) but I get your point.

Why are magnetic monopoles interesting to you? I've seen some articles on them but I can't still wrap my head around how they'd work.