Posted on 09/02/2008 8:14:57 PM PDT by B-Chan
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 silicon-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.
If you tilt the Earth's axis *more* during winter, the Sun's light will come in at an even lower angle. It will be colder in winter and warmer in summer (higher sun angle in summer).
Anyone but me notice that the person who posted this rather advanced article only responded once during this entire lengthy thread? And that was in response to the article having been posted before. What I suspect is that the person who posted it did so as some sort of a ‘test’ to see just how smart (or dumb) we are here. OR, did it as a joke and are now laughing their butt off at the responses. (not serious, but am wondering)
Well, B-Chan’s been here for a decade, and you’ve been here ~2 orders of magnitude less than that, so I’ll take the prize behind door #1.
Thanks. I’m not posting much because I don’t know much about physics. Remember, I flunked out of Navy Nuke School!
LOL! I see what you mean. Even a dopey lib can understand it all now.
Wow. I'll bet you understand it all.
Wow. I’ll bet you understand it all.
***Absolutely. But every time I open the box labelled “understand” a cat named “no you don’t” jumps out. His middle name is Schroedinger.
No subject is so complicated that it cannot be confused, confounded and corrupted with skillful writing.
“...more than a decade ago a researcher noticed something funny about two Pioneer spacecraft that were streaming toward the edge of the solar system. They weren’t where they should have been.
Something was holding the probes back, according to calculations of their paths, speed and how the gravity of all the objects in the solar system — and even a tiny push provided by sunlight — ought to act on them. “
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_041018.html
“We’re not near the sun anymore Toto!”
I don’t know much about physics. Remember, I flunked out of Navy Nuke School!
***At least you got accepted. 2 years later, when you were sitting on the grass on a nice, pretty spring day, your counterpart was slaving away in a nuke sub sweatshop. You may have dodged a bit of a bullet there.
Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality: Solving the Quantum Mysteries -by John Gribbin
http://www.amazon.com/Schrodingers-Kittens-Search-Reality-Mysteries/dp/0316328197
Also...
The Matter Myth: Dramatic Discoveries That Challenge Our Understanding of Physical Reality (Paperback)
- Paul Davies and John Gribbin
http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Myth-Discoveries-Challenge-Understanding/dp/0671728415
Nothing wrong with that. I was just joshing. But this was one doozy of a topic for non-professionals.
If we can/could follow it to the end, there are no particles, and there is no physics. Its all G-d’s (the creator) dream.
The most obvious would be that they arrived here via impact events after the Earth was long since formed up. In that case, any ages you were to deduce from heavy metals, would apply to the heavy metals themselves but not to our own planet.
There is a boatload of new theory which takes to task several of Einsteins “constants” which he used to make his theory of both general and special relativity work. It is not so much that this theory is grossly wrong - just that some things which he thought were universal constants are, in fact, variable values which change in accord with certain conditions not immediately obvious.
This decay rate variation indicates that much of what we observe here on Earth is related to special conditions present here which may not be the same in other parts of space. THAT is a way cool thing and kinda kicks a whole bunch of qantum physics into a cocked hat and makes way for string theory and other even more obscure propositions
Still, I though describing a thermocouple power array as not your ‘generation’ was a terrible pun...
Excellent question!
I have no idea...
I note that Schrödinger doesn’t look like he’s all there...
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