Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun?

the physics arXiv blog ^ | 8/29/08

[LibWhacker]

Here’s an interesting conundrum involving nuclear decay rates.

We think that the decay rates of elements are constant regardless of the ambient conditions (except in a few special cases where beta decay can be influenced by powerful electric fields).

So that makes it hard to explain the curious periodic variations in the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 observed by groups at the Brookhaven National Labs in the US and at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesandstalt in Germany in the 1980s.

Today, the story gets even more puzzling. Jere Jenkins and pals at Purdue University in Indiana have re-analysed the raw data from these experiments and say that the modulations are synchronised with each other and with Earth’s distance from the sun. (Both groups, in acts of selfless dedication, measured the decay rates of siliocn-32 and radium-226 over a period of many years.)

In other words, there appears to be an annual variation in the decay rates of these elements.

Jenkins and co put forward two theories to explain why this might be happening.

First, they say a theory developed by John Barrow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Douglas Shaw at the University of London, suggests that the sun produces a field that changes the value of the fine structure constant on Earth as its distance from the sun varies during each orbit. Such an effect would certainly cause the kind of an annual variation in decay rates that Jenkins and co highlight.

Another idea is that the effect is caused by some kind of interaction with the neutrino flux from the sun’s interior, which could be tested by carrying out the measurements close to a nuclear reactor (which would generate its own powerful neutrino flux).

It turns out, that the notion of that nuclear decay rates are constant has been under attack for some time. In 2006, Jenkins says the decay rate of manganese-54 in their lab decreased dramtically during a solar flare on 13 December.

And numerous groups disagree over the decay rate for elements such as titanium-44, silicon-32 and cesium-137. Perhaps they took their data at different times of the year.

Keep em peeled beause we could hear more about this. Interesting stuff.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283: Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth-Sun Distance

[Quix]

No rush but would be interested in your opinion.

Thanks.

[betty boop]

I just tried the link. It didn’t work. Help???!!!!

[Quix]

Will get back to you.

My efforts will begin with

http://www.enterprisemission.com

and go from there. You are welcome to try and beat me to it.

[Quix]

Actually, I think I posted much of those threads on this thread:

Welll haven’t found it so will go to enterprisemission.com

but post 483 at this thread has some related docs . . .

in a sense.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1958871/posts?page=490

[Quix]

Both parts 2 and 1 are visible as photos and links near the top of the homepage at

http://www.enterprisemission.com

[Quix]

This link to part 2 was copied and pasted and should work:

http://www.enterprisemission.com/Von_Braun2.htm

part 1

http://www.enterprisemission.com/Von_Braun.htm

I just tried part 1 from PREVIEW and it worked.

Thanks much.

[betty boop]

I must correct a mistake in my last. The word "radix" is from the Latin, not the Greek (Koine).

I really must resist this tendency I have of attributing so much to the Greeks. Yet on the other hand, they did so much of the original "spadework" on problems that continue to afflict and challenge the human imagination, some two millennia-plus after their time.... Like this situation we find ourselves in with this article.

It has been said that the great Greeks (we're talking the likes of Plato and Aristotle here, plus the great pre-Socratics, including Parmenides, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, et al.) were perfectly hapless on "time problems." But they understood the need for the universe to have deep "roots" well enough; and that those roots had to be timeless, eternal. Otherwise, the world could not be anything in particular in the time that human beings actually experience it....

[betty boop]

GREAT!!!! Both links work! Thank you, Quix. I’ll check ‘em out!

[metmom]

There’ve been plenty of crevo threads lately.

I’ve noticed a tendency for frevos to avoid threads that makes their position look bad.

One of their biggest arguments is about constants being constant and they’ve said that if that weren’t the case, then there’d be no way to accurately determine the age of anything, so the assumption needs to be made that all that they depend on is constant.

[Coyoteman]

I’ve noticed a tendency for frevos to avoid threads that makes their position look bad.

I've noticed a tendency for "frevos" to avoid threads that are packed up with stupid remarks by folks who have no clue about science.

It gets tiring correcting the same posters time and time again. That's why many of the scientists have simply left this site (those who haven't been banned).

This place is rapidly becoming a YECho chamber.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, measurements of the nuclear decay rates on board spacecraft will certainly help - particularly at greater distances. Perhaps this will help us understand the Pioneer effect also...

[Kevmo]

I’m glad you uphold science as important. I’ve noticed a tendency for some “frevos” to denigrate science when it reinforces facts that they simply do not like.

For instance, in this thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2056400/posts

I also notice that Betty Boop & Alamo-Girl are on this thread, and they seem to have plenty of clues about science, so your remarks seem hollow. Perhaps there’s something in their remarks you’d like to correct?

[betty boop]

DePalma, 25 years after Explorer [first successful U.S. launch of an orbiting satellite on January 31, 1958] (and knowing nothing of its anomalies or its profound significance to his own work ...), realized that "the spinning ball" was NOT (directly, anyway ...) about "anti-gravity" at all. That, instead, it represented a unique window into a far deeper reality ... re the very "energy structure" of space and time itself ... and the extraordinary possibilities of extracting that unlimited, "free energy" via a variety of "appropriate" technologies....

One of our unfinished, on-going discussions (abruptly cut short by [DePalma's] tragic and untimely death, in 1997 ...) was a resolution of exactly where this "free space energy" was coming from; in the "HD Model," it is not really coming from "3-Space" at all -- but literally from "a higher dimensional reality," made available in this dimension (as a propagating torsion field distortion ... via "physical rotation of mass")....

The act of mere "rotation" -- in the HD Model -- literally "opens a type of 'gate,' or 'geometric doorway ...'" between other dimensions ....

Combining two previous experiments -- DePalma's Accutron detection of the "spin field" around a massive, spinning laboratory disc, and Maurice Allais' detection (with a paraconical pendulum) of equally "anomalous pendulum effects during the 1954 solar eclipse" ... -- I decided to attempt detection of potential "torsion/HD effects" (if any!) generated from the impending Earth-Venus-Sun alignment during the rare "Venus Transit" -- to take place on June 8, 2004....

[After describing this new, combined experiment, Hoagland concludes,] Venus and the Sun -- by means of their own extraordinary masses and separate, but reversed, rotations (Venus spins backwards, remember ...) -- were obviously creating their own extraordinarily powerful, interfering "torsional fields"....

Which ... were clearly able to send successive, "interfering waves" of torsion ... to visibly interact with, and change the inertia of, the tiny tuning fork inside our Accutron!

It was an extraordinary and startling scientific moment of discovery -- a clear, measureable demonstration of the reality of DePalma's rotationally-induced "inertial/torsion fields." But, more than that, it was a vivid confirmation that outside the lab ... celestial "planetary alignments" of major members of the solar system ... can and do have extremely powerful -- and physically measureable -- effects on Earth....

However, as DePalma had observed himself years before, the resulting influence of these "OD field" effects -- be it from spinning laboratory discs ... rotating planets ... and even massive stars (!) -- is NOT limited to mechanical objects, like "tuning forks" ....

As he noted--

"... the effect of a field which confers inertia on objects immersed within it can be applied to a number of [other] situations, not all of which have to be mechanical, i.e. chemical reactions are [also measureably] affected by such a field. Reactions which do not take place under 'normal' conditions may be catalyzed. Other reactions may be inhibited [emphasis added by Hoagland] ...."

Pretty intringuing stuff, Quix! Thank you so very much for the links to this fascinating article by Richard C. Hoagland (The Enterprise Mission, 2008).

It seems that if this line of investigation is being pursued, sooner or later it may show that both the Newtonian and Einsteinian models are "incomplete," or special cases of a more fundamental law. DePalma makes this plain in the following remarks:

"The fact that Newton’s Laws do not distinguish between the spinning and the non-rotating object represents the state of mechanical knowledge at the time. But because Newton did not distinguish between rotation and non-rotation, Einstein did not distinguish between the so-called inert and 'gravitational mass.' The fact that rotation affects the mechanical properties of objects places Newton’s Laws as a special case and invalidates a geometrical [Einsteinian] interpretation of space.

"… in a strict sense, the precise application of Newton’s laws [based on these experiments] … have to be restricted to non-rotating mechanical objects in field-free space. In a gravitational field, the possibility of extraction of greater energy by a new mechanical dimension [rotation] opens up the possibility [against both Newton and Einstein] of an anti-gravitational interaction [emphasis added] ….”

Certainly I don't know how all this will turn out; and even though I'm personally attracted by the possibility of a geometrical description of spacetime, a la Einstein, I'm intrigued by this spacetime "tortional" field hypothesis. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Thanks again, Quix, for these intriguing links!

[Kevmo]

Thanks for the ping. That guy Hoagland always strikes me as a primadonna bloviator. But one thing you mention does have some experimental evidence to back it up:

In a gravitational field, the possibility of extraction of greater energy by a new mechanical dimension [rotation] opens up the possibility [against both Newton and Einstein] of an anti-gravitational interaction [emphasis added] ….”
***Take a look below at the first few hits on Google for Dr. Evgeny Podkletnov’s surprising finding.

Superconductors and Antigravity - A Timeline
Mar 28, 2006 ... 1992: Dr. Evgeny Podkletnov notices a column of pipe-smoke forming over a rotating superconductor, and after further experimentation ...
http://www.americanantigravity.com/articles/500/1/Superconductors-and-Antigravity-—A-Timeline/Page1.html - 47k - Cached - Similar pages

More results from www.americanantigravity.com »
Experimental results on Podkletnov’s Impulse Gravity Generator
“We’ve been through all this before on antigravity forum. ... If a mass ~1 kg is rotating with the angular velocity ~ 20.000 rpm then the “inner force” ...
http://www.rialian.com/rnboyd/podkletnov.htm - 34k - Cached - Similar pages

antigravity experiment 2007 Frolov Faraday Lab
The effect is detected as 0.05% - 0.07% mass (weight) changes. It was detected for the case of non-rotating high temperature conductivity superconductor ...
http://www.faraday.ru/htsc2007.htm - 30k - Cached - Similar pages [PDF]

For Whom the Bell TollsFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML

What is key is control of the relative phase between Podkletnov’s rotating superconductor. coherence and the interpenetrating vacuum coherence in the common ...
http://www.qedcorp.com/destiny/Podkletnov.pdf - Similar pages

[valkyry1]

It has already been shown that the rate of C14 production (& other isotopes) are altered by the influx of solar particle/radiation and cosmic radiation. This radiation from the Sun operates on a approx. 11 year cycle. There may be other solar cycles of greater time spans for which we cannot account for yet because these cycles have not been monitored long enough.

The possibility that the earth has been exposed to other sources of cosmic particle/radiation cannot be ruled out, nor can the possibility that cosmic radiation is not a constant at any given point in the galaxy.

[TXnMA]

Thanks for the ping, BB!

Fascinating stuff, indeed. I'll have to go back and read the original article carefully -- and do a bit of outside research -- before I can comment coherently. Specifically, I need to know the order of magnitude of the observed effect (parts per million? parts per billion? parts per 10⁴⁴?)

This does illustrate the fact that we scientists -- whether creationists or not, do try to remain open to new data -- and somewhat skeptical about the same -- as new observations are made.

Well, at least, we scientists are dedicated to continually making (and interpreting) new observations of God's creation -- unlike others, who (for whatever egocentric reason) try to insist that all knowledge of His scientific reality is contained in their (mis) interpretation of the first few sentences of what is, in fact, a perfectly true, spiritual book...

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Again, thanks! Regardless of its order of magnitude, this principle (if real) could have vast cosmological import. (Consider conditions in the vicinity of a supermassive, rapidly rotating pulsar, for example...)

[TXnMA]

That's a fascinating image! I don't recognize it as being from the APOD archives. Guess I'll have to do a search...

It sorta reminds me of what the matter shell expelled from a recently-exploded nova/supernova might look like...

Pray tell: what is it?

[TXnMA]

"Does this mean that all of the Atomic Clocks are out of calibration?"

I think you're on the right track for acquiring data on this from already-running experiments/processes. Wonder what type of timing sources we have aboard all our various spacecraft that are wandering along various paths through the Solar System...

If the effect is related to gravity, for example, a cesium-decay clock that has passed near Jupiter might show anomalous behavior.

[Quix]

PRAISE GOD.

Am very humbled by your checking that out. I found it quite interesting but in this dept, I’m probably worse than a layman.

I know Hoagland has, at best, a mixed reputation. However, truth is truth. Even satan knows some things are true.

And, my read of Hoagland’s personality is that he’s not basically a charlatan. He may get very far off on this or that tangent based on very questionable evidence but most folks are guilty of that on this or that topic sooner or later in their lives.

He does make considerably more noise about his conclusions than most folks are comfortable with in ‘conventional’ scientific circles.

On the other hand, Conventional Scientific Circles can be as parochial and closed minded as the most rigid, narrow religionist.

Folks who are TRULY willing to go wherever the evidence and truth takes them seem to be rare.

It has struck me in pondering all this . . . God may have a ‘thing’ for spinning things as He seems to for spirals.

It seems to me that cosmologically, a great many things spin whether on the sub-atomic, micro or macro levels.

Given that, perhaps it should be no great surprise that spin may turn out to have more to do with the basic fabric of reality.

Particularly more to do with the basic fabric of reality . . . than has been admitted by the current powers that be—reportedly for very self-serving power-mongering !!!!CONTROL!!!! reasons.

[metmom]

Or avoiding any scientific discussion of the scientific topic on hand.