“We don’t know” or “it’s spontaneous” is the definitive answer for what gives an unstable atom its nudge. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/497589/wh

“We don’t know” or “it’s spontaneous” is the definitive answer for what gives an unstable atom its nudge. https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/497589/what-triggers-a-nuclear-decay#497599 https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/497589/what-trig... https://www.thoughtco.com/why-radioactive-decay-occurs-608649 https://www.thoughtco.com/why-radioactive-decay-occurs-60864... I personally don’t like the answer that it’s “spontaneous”, but I vaguely grok that any explanation has to step beyond QM/QCD as we know it. There are hidden variable QM interpretations that exist, but marrying them with Special Relativity appears to be difficult. There are even more exotic hidden variables theories like https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/515720/what-is-the-whole-idea-behind-retrocausality-in-quantum-mechanics https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/515720/what-is-t... but none of these variables are measurable with regards to making predictions on decay. I’m also way out of my field so I may be wrong here.