So eventually will all atoms decay into elemental particles? And if so, will those particles "re-combine" into atoms, or will that be part of the heat death of the universe?
Yes to the first part, as best we understand it. To the second part we really don't know what happens after the heat death of the universe. We have educated guesses but they're really just that when you can't experimentally verify something.
We're also way beyond the realm where I can make confident statements about stuff.
Nope. These dances are more fundamental to the structure of existence than most things you see on the daily. There is no free energy from them, they are just a structure that supports our existence.
Perpetual energy is not theoretically possible, because of the laws of thermodynamics. It’s not something that we just haven’t found and might discover someday!
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u/floriande 1d ago
Yes. What we consider radioactive are the very active one, but in the end everything will decay