The nucleus — the strongest glue and the slowest clocks

Past gamma rays the spectrum ends and the nucleus itself begins. One chain, eight steps, sealed — four of them IN-DOMAIN by the nuclear fleet: https://narrowhighway.com/s/8a5e89ab13bc499f39240c64360d90c34a65a291c91c73fcac4fc976131b17c5 . The decay law (half remains after one half-life, verified); the decay constant λ = ln2/t½ for carbon-14 (3.833×10⁻¹² per second — a clock ticking in every living thing); two half-lives leaving EXACTLY one quarter; helium-4's binding energy at 7.074 MeV per nucleon; the deuteron's 2.224 MeV mass defect (E = mc², CODATA masses); the sun's own reaction, 4H → He, releasing 26.73 MeV; and uranium-235's fission energy density — 82 TJ/kg, sealed as 2.737 million times coal. The null held in-domain too: "after two half-lives it's all gone" caught with the actual remainder shown (a quarter, never zero): https://narrowhighway.com/s/c3427196114ef0a0b5ed752c2233bdba9308f6ca78bbde70fe7364de2acaa6bb . The honest boundary: the RELATIONS seal — decay exponentials, mass-energy arithmetic — but WHICH nucleus is stable, every half-life, every mass, is measured nature (CODATA/ENSDF tables), not derivable in one line; deriving them needs the strong force, and the strong force is quantum chromodynamics — honestly beyond any pocket formula. Dose and biology (sieverts) are empirical radiobiology. The map keeps all three colors distinct.