A correspondence between the physics of extreme black holes and that of stable heavy atomic nuclei.

Extreme black holes have zero Bekenstein-Hawking temperature, and hence are immune of Hawking evaporation. On the other hand, there are heavy atomic nuclei that feature extraordinary stability to spontaneous transmutations changing their mass numbers. The fact that extreme black holes and stable heavy nuclei share a common trait, that of defying spontaneous ejection of their constituents, suggests that a good part of nuclear physics can be modelled on physics of extreme black holes through a simple version of gauge/gravity duality. We formulate a general criterion for discriminating between stable and unstable microscopic systems whereby a new insight into some still imperfectly understood phenomena, such as instability of truly neutral spinless particles (Higgs bosons, $\pi_0$, quarkonia, glueballs), can be gained.