If proton decay takes place, the sole survivors will be black holes.
He got one where he had to sit down in a coal mine waiting for proton decay.
But an infalling observer never has time to see the proton decay.
The following timeline assumes that proton decay does not take place.
Thus one might think that the possibility of spontaneous proton decay could not be tested experimentally.
It was a large water Čerenkov detector designed to search for proton decay.
Of course, if scientists do detect a proton decay, the whole universe, not just theorists, will be in serious trouble.
If virtual black holes exist, they provide a mechanism for proton decay.
There is currently no experimental evidence that proton decay occurs.
No evidence for proton decay has yet been detected, however.