4 ms·

Reading this introduced me to the phenomenon of meta-stable nuclear isomers: states of atomic nuclei of an isotope which are more stable than the ground state o

Reading this introduced me to the phenomenon of meta-stable nuclear isomers: states of atomic nuclei of an isotope which are more stable than the ground state of that isotope. (including the metastable isomer of 180m 73Ta, which is present in all tantalum samples at about 1 part in 8,300. Its half-life is at least 1015 years, markedly longer than the age of the universe.)

nielsbot 9y ago
10^15?
- klodolph 9y ago
  Yes, although Wikipedia says that the estimated lower bound is 45x10^15 years.
  - terminado 9y ago
    I was about to say, maybe it was supposed to be 1,015 of some other kind of unit of time.
badmin_ 9y ago
You'd probably be interested in the metastable isotopes of hafnium, too. Most notably 178m2Hf.