Susuto

Quantum physics opposes that idea a bit. Take radioactive decay, for example. Radioactive particle decays, giving off radiation. Half-life of a radioactive particle means that when you take any number of radioactive particles, after you reach the half-life, only half of the particles remain.

The dilemma lies in the fact that if you make new radioactive particles and wait for half of them to decay, then make a brand new dose of particles for comparison, the oldest won’t decay first. There doesn’t seem to be any internal mechanism or “clock” which dictates the decay process. It seems to be simply a fundamental property of the particles: a chance to decay at a certain rate, nothing more.

We might discover that there is a mechanism that makes a particle decay after all, but as someone on Slashdot stated, the opposite is also true. We can NEVER be sure that we’ve found the most fundamental rule that life follows, there’s always a possibility of something smaller affecting our observations.