Posted on 08/17/2012 11:21:22 AM PDT by fishtank
More Fluctuations Found in Isotopic Clocks
by Brian Thomas, M.S. | Aug. 17, 2012
Age-dating a rock using its radioactive isotopes only works by assuming that the rate at which that "clock" ticks was constant in the past and essentially identical to that in the present. Not long ago, scientists discovered excess helium in crystals1 and "orphaned" polonium radiohalos,2 both of which imply that the decay rates of isotopes commonly used to date earth rocks were dramatically accelerated in the past. Even today, researchers are finding small but significant changes in isotope decay rates, and these add credibility to the idea that isotopic processes were once very different from today's processes.
One standard isotopic clock system uses decaying uranium isotopes. Uranium spontaneously and slowly decays to lead (Pb on the Periodic Table of Elements). Two different uranium isotopes, 235U and 238U, decay into lead at different rates. Geologists assume that the ratio between these is constant and known, giving a convenient shortcut to uranium dating, which only requires that the two uranium amounts be measured.
Of course, this shortcut age-dating method assumes that 238U and 235U have decayed at today's rates throughout the past. It also assumes that the relative amounts of the two have been constant. Physics Today editor Johanna Miller recently wrote, "Standard Pb-Pb dating protocol uses a 238U/235U ratio of 137.88 with zero uncertainty. But several recent studies have cast doubt on that number."3
Miller cited one experiment that found that the uranium ratio (the heavier 238U to lighter weight 235U) is not constant. The study authors wrote, "Our observations have a direct impact on the U-series and U-Th-Pb chronometers," meaning that dates "determined" by uranium decay will need revision.4
Yet another study reported natural variation in the uranium ratio. These authors suggested that natural processes separate the isotopes from one another and skew the ratio, thereby skewing the ages gained by the assumption that the ratio was constant. These authors wrote, "The discovery that 238U/235U varies in nature also has implications for the precision and accuracy of U-Pb dating. The total observed range in U isotope compositions would produce variations in 207Pb/206Pb ages of young U-bearing minerals of up to 3 Ma [million years old], and up to 2 Ma for minerals that are 3 billion years old."5
Two to three million years are not a huge part of three billion. So, adjusting already-published dates to reflect these new and larger error margins will not displace billion-year-old age assignments. However, if today's comparatively tame natural processes affect isotope ratios, then ancient and much more violent processes could have affected those ratios and rates much more, just as the helium in crystals and orphaned radiohalos imply.
Another isotope system used for dating, though more rarely that uranium, is that which occurs when a radioactive samarium isotope decays to the element neodymium. A 2012 Science report re-measured samarium's decay rate, finding that it occurs only about 66 percent as fast as "the currently used value" for age dating.6 This is a huge discrepancy! It means that all published samarium-dated rock ages need to be re-evaluated.
In addition, Purdue University just applied for a patent on a solar flare warning system that relies on ways in which the earth-sun relationship somehow alters nuclear decay rates. Purdue News reports that "Advance warning could allow satellite and power grid operators to take steps to minimize impact and astronauts to shield themselves from potentially lethal radiation emitted during solar storms."7 Their invention would rely on detecting changes in the rate of manganese 54 decaying to chromium 54. Researchers observed the decay rate changes occurring about a day prior to solar flares.
Even carbon dating is in hot water. Scientists typically use this method to age-date carbon-containing objects thought to be only tens of thousands of years old. The relevant radioactive carbon isotope (14C) decays so fast that it should no longer exist in earth materials that are a million or more years old.8 Recently, researchers measured elevated levels of 14C in correlated tree rings and attributed the spike to an unidentified "massive cosmic event."9 If natural processes did alter carbon isotope ratios, then why trust dates that assume the ratios were never altered?
Science shows that isotopic clocks are not all trustworthy.10 The isotope ratios and rates upon which they depend are variable, even on today's comparatively calm earth surface. During the tumultuous Flood, when immeasurable quantities of mantle material were ejected onto earth's surface and water potentially contaminated everything, isotopic clocks ticked much, much faster.11
References
Humphreys, D.R. 2005. Young Helium Diffusion Age of Zircons Supports Accelerated Nuclear Decay. In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Vol. 2. Vardiman, L. et al., eds. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research and Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society.
Gentry, R.V. 1974. Radiohalos in a Radiochronological and Cosmolocial Perspective. Science. 184 (4132): 62-66.
Miller, J. 2012. Time to reset isotopic clocks? Physics Today. 65 (6): 20-21.
Stirling, C.H. et al. 2007. Low-temperature isotopic fractionation of uranium. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 264 (1): 208-225.
Weyer, S. et al. 2008. Natural fractionation of 238U/235U. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta. 72 (2): 345-359.
Kinoshita, N. et al. 2012. A Shorter 146Sm Half-Life Measured and Implications for 146Sm-142Nd Chronology in the Solar System. Science. 335 (6076): 1614-1617.
Venere, E. New system could predict solar flares, give advance warning. Purdue News. Posted on purdue.edu, August 13, 2012. Despite this, 90 instances of C-14 in supposedly million-year-old earth materials were reviewed and 10 more were presented in Baumgardner, J.R. et al. 2003. Measurable 14C in Fossilized Organic Materials: Confirming the Young Earth Creation-Flood Model. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Creationism. R.L. Ivey, ed. Pittsburgh, PA: Creation Science Fellowship, Inc., 127-142.
Lovett, R. A. Mysterious radiation burst recorded in tree rings. Nature news. Posted on nature.com June 3, 2012, accessed August 10, 2012.
Austin, S.A. 2005. Do Radioisotope Clocks Need Repair? Testing the Assumptions of Isochron Dating Using K-Ar, Rb-Sr, Sm-Nd, and Pb-Pb Isotopes. In Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth: Results of a Young-Earth Creationist Research Initiative, Vol. 2.Vardiman, L.et al., eds. El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research and Chino Valley, AZ: Creation Research Society. When heated to plasma, bare nuclei of rhenium radioisotopes decay a billion times faster than normal. See Bosch, F. et al. 1996. Observation of Bound-State β- Decay of Fully Ionized 187Re: 187Re- 187Os Cosmochronometry. Physical Review Letters. 77 (26): 5190-5193.
* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.
Article posted on August 17, 2012.
That kid was wonderous.. thanks...
If you have not heard or researched Emily Bear or Anna Graceman you’d be amazed as well..
Anna writes lyrics and music as good as Paul Simon or Carole King or the Bergman’s and she’s only 12 been writing music since 4 or 5...
Emily Bear just may be the next Mozart.. really not kidding.. amazing thing just to view YT’s of her..
Her composition “Northern Lights” is brilliant.. and so many others.. and shes what 12 or younger..
Jackie (the brat) stole my heart though..
I don’t want it back she can keep it..
In her second PBS Special she did
“The Summer Knows” from movie Summer of 42..
Blew me away.. amazing she could do such a
bluesy jazzy torch song like(better than) an adult torch singer..
and the trumpet player (Jamaane Smith) was brilliant..
She pretty OWNS this song from now on..
and then apples reminds you of Newton and
I believe the Newton inference has to do with his literal ‘yec’ worldview
Somehow the entire concept of "analogy" got lost there. Or was intentionally discarded. I can't tell.
Mine have indeed been similar in that there are no words (music sometimes, no words) - but mine are not often repetitious.
For example, we mere mortals struggle with the concept of the Trinity, because it goes against what we creatures understand. But autonomy is not a restriction to God.
But where autonomy is, then of necessity there will be senders and receivers in communication and a need to encode/decode messages, i.e. language (semiosis.)
Interestingly, qualia are among the reasons artificial intelligence cannot be called "living." Qualia are those things we experience but are unable to convey to anyone else, e.g. love, pain, regret.
However, where there is no autonomy, the merged vision you had, there is no conveyance and the whole is the part and the part is the whole, the sense or experience such as qualia is felt by all, all at once.
Concerning the autonomy issue, I have recently been drawn to meditating on the geometry of space/time - more specifically that, if we were able to sense and act in more than 4 expanded spatial/temporal dimensions then we would be able to reach inside and remove the contents of a closed box, examine a planet in another galaxy without leaving our lab, etc. In effect, we would be able to transport things "faster than the speed of light" simply by changing perspective (like rotating a plane in a tesseract) - or to put it another way, as if bending space/time itself. Even so, whereas geometric forms would be visually though not actually disintegrated depending on perspective, the forms would remain autonomous because of the geometry.
Then again, geometry is part of the creation and not a property of the Creator of it.
God's Name is I AM.
“... if we were able to sense and act in more than 4 expanded spatial/temporal dimensions then we would be able to reach inside and remove the contents of a closed box ...” Or reach into Belshazzar’s palace party central and write on his chamber wall, or stand on a mountain top and cover the eyes of a passing Moses, bring three Hebrew boys into your presence inside a ‘furnace’, to ptotect them from harm, or enter a closed and shuttered room without using a door or window, or appear beside a couple of disciples walking a dusty road, then sit down to dine with them, give a blessing, then exit the scene instantly, or ... well, you get the gist no doubt.
All I can add is that the Jewish mystics use the term Ayn Sof when speaking of God the Creator. The term literally means "no thing" and the point is that any word man would use to describe Creator-God would limit his concept by the word he used.
That insight has stayed with me for years perhaps to warn me away from superimposing my mental limitations onto God's revelations of Who He IS.
Truly, God the Father has revealed Himself in four ways: through the Person of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, through His words in Scripture and through His Creation both physical and spiritual.
And so we can gather up testimonies, make observations about Him from His creation, compile His own words revealing Himself to us - whether Name or attribute - and yet we should stop short of presuming that we fully know or could ever fully know "Who God IS" - i.e. Ayn Sof.
Man is not the measure of God.
Man is not the measure of God.
Indeed, dearest sister in Christ. That's exactly the meaning I was trying to convey in Post #156. That's not to say that we should not "gather up testimonies, make observations about Him," etc. We want to understand Him. But it seems we need to be aware that He is not reducible to human categories of understanding.
This is an epistemological point. It's of concern to me, for man has the propensity to forget that his theories about anything are not the same thing as that to which they refer in Reality. No dogma can possibly encompass God as He IS in His fullness....
Instrumental reason cannot disclose who God IS. Only His self-revelation to us can do that, and that must necessarily be partial. For our minds are finite, quite puny, compared to the infinite Mind of God.
In short I completely agree with you, dear sister in Christ: We ought not to superimpose our mental limitations onto God's revelations of Who He Is.
I'm truly sorry if I've offended anyone by making such "philosophical" remarks. [My bad.]
Actually that was one of the most wonderful things in the "vision"(mine).. was that shape/form was not needed(geometry).. Still possible but not really needed.. I got the "feeling" it was "juvenile" or sometimes needed to relate to others(whatever they are/will be)... but the "normal" state was of no real shape.. I "saw" plasmoid entities/beings(kinda)..
Language and even Shape not really needed... was a lot for me to process.. I have had trouble trying to express this in words.. maybe still cannot(well)... Considering a "life" where shape is not really needed(by me) is hard to imagine.. let alone the language thing... In the "vision" the Universe exists mostly as is but there is a "plane/place" super universal.. that operates on different "laws".. existing simultaneously..
Thats where I will be (according to the vision)... But by the way earth will be HELL.. a good place for humans which those there will be relegated to.. i.e. being humans.. like; forever.. The Punishment being remaining a human.. instead of "something else"...
Some think I was (trippin)... but I wasn't.. it was as real as a heart attack... What to do with this data?.. Makes no difference really...
Whatever is.. "IS"/will be... What ever ain't ..."AIN'T"/won't be..
You know "dreams" might be to prepare us(our minds) for this.. So that it will not seem strange to us from the git go... Heck my "vision" itself was "dream-like"...
For The Son is in The Father and The Father is in The Son.
In another place in the Bible is the hint that refers to Jesus could not sin because His seed remained within Him, His Godness remained within Him thus He could not sin because that would be contrary to Whom God IS.
Jesus let us know that The Seed left Him at the end on the cross, so that He could die in our stead. I happen to believe that The Seed came back into the body in the tomb, and He left the wrappings and the rock enclosure by just stepping out of our spacetime limits.
BTW, we are told that the earnest of our inheritence of That Seed is what comes into our human spirit when saved, so that we have 'God with Us' for the remiander of our earthly life. But the degree of expression of His 'within us' is related to how much we allow Him to 'do it' ... Faithful is He that calleth you, for He will also do it.
Truly, when people try to superimpose their own mental limitations on God's revelations of Himself we end up with things like Michaelangelo's "Creation of Adam" in the Sistine Chapel - beautiful but misleading.
Conversely, we all benefit when we disclose everything - what we know, what we suspect, what we cannot know.
God's Name is I AM.
Indeed, perhaps it was to comfort you and prepare you for the next life.
Thank you so much for all your insights, dear MHGinTN!
FReepMail for you...
He's married to evolution because it allows his mind to go on permanent vacation, an autopilot rationalizing of his rebellion against his creator.
When it's broken down to it's very most basic buidling block, liberalism amounts to a rejection of God.
A mindreader troll with a vacuous personal attack. Yawn.
Truth hurts, eh?
You miss the point completely then.
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