<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Unsolved problem in physics: Do protons decay? If so, then what is the half - life? Can nuclear binding energy affect this? (more unsolved problems in physics) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> Unsolved problem in physics: Do protons decay? If so, then what is the half - life? Can nuclear binding energy affect this? (more unsolved problems in physics) </Td> </Tr> <P> One of the outstanding problems in modern physics is the predominance of matter over antimatter in the universe . The universe, as a whole, seems to have a nonzero positive baryon number density--that is, matter exists . Since it is assumed in cosmology that the particles we see were created using the same physics we measure today, it would normally be expected that the overall baryon number should be zero, as matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts . This has led to a number of proposed mechanisms for symmetry breaking that favour the creation of normal matter (as opposed to antimatter) under certain conditions . This imbalance would have been exceptionally small, on the order of 1 in every 7010100000000000000 ♠ 10 000 000 000 (10) particles a small fraction of a second after the Big Bang, but after most of the matter and antimatter annihilated, what was left over was all the baryonic matter in the current universe, along with a much greater number of bosons . Experiments reported in 2010 at Fermilab, however, seem to show that this imbalance is much greater than previously assumed . In an experiment involving a series of particle collisions, the amount of generated matter was approximately 1% larger than the amount of generated antimatter . The reason for this discrepancy is yet unknown . </P> <P> Most grand unified theories explicitly break the baryon number symmetry, which would account for this discrepancy, typically invoking reactions mediated by very massive X bosons (X) or massive Higgs bosons (). The rate at which these events occur is governed largely by the mass of the intermediate X or particles, so by assuming these reactions are responsible for the majority of the baryon number seen today, a maximum mass can be calculated above which the rate would be too slow to explain the presence of matter today . These estimates predict that a large volume of material will occasionally exhibit a spontaneous proton decay . </P>

Instability becomes a problem at which number of protons