>>16732527>why?Right question. Why not, with a thick enough slab of good old lead we might just try. But intuitively (not a particle physicist) I can tell that there are two kinda tendencies in a nucleus ... one to stick together and the other to rip itself apart violently. Would not go as far to categorically rule out alternative stable configurations. Might just be tricky to push through the instability into a new conformation (this is where you only screw around behind that good old lead slab).