The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements

[Gyuri]

Interesting.
I have not heard about this:

The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements

[c2cthomas]

Thanks for the link Gyuri - interesting info. Oh well - I'm retired now so little to become bothered with on my part - the younger ones are having their turn now.

From the article: ""It doesn't make sense according to conventional ideas," Fischbach said. Jenkins whimsically added, "What we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."

Sorta reminds me of the mental and emotional processes going on inside of 17 Y/O granddaughters head.

[pheonix358]

Scientific method has it's faults, lots of faults! It takes a great deal of effort to wake science from it's slumber! So many things science does not want to know about.

Terry

[amp-guy]

So if radioactive decay is not a constant but is affected by solar disturbances then what is the carbon dating method really good for.

[wintermute]

Well I guess since it appears that what they have found is cyclical (on a 33 day cycle) and carbon dating is over millions of years, then provided average decay rate has remained constant over time then the carbon 14 dating should still work within the limitations of accuracy that it already had...

If however the the emissions from the sun are having the described effect, and these emissions have been getting greater or lesser over time then it is feasible that carbon dating estimates could be out by a larger than anticipated margin

Tony.

[Gyuri]

The article says nothing about the extent of impact.
Probably it cause only minimal difference.
After all, if it were otherwise, it would have been discovered.
This is not the essence of the thing.
Thomas found it he cited lines.
"What we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."

So here the reason and not the caused effect the really interesting one.
In physics it can be lead to far to find the cause.

This perhaps deserves Nobel Prize.

Gyuri

[Gyuri]

Well, it seems to me, from this it certainly will not be a Nobel Prize.
What a shame.

http://donuts.berkeley.edu/papers/EarthSun.pdf

And whether this will be the same because of the speed of neutrinos?

[SY]

That's the nature of doing science: if you're wrong and it's important, people will figure it out. And it's OK to be wrong, that's how progress is made.

Thanks for the link. I'm amused to see that the research was funded by DHS; I can only imagine how the grant proposal tied this in to Homeland Security.

[Steve Dunlap]

Originally Posted by Gyuri

Well, it seems to me, from this it certainly will not be a Nobel Prize.
What a shame.

http://donuts.berkeley.edu/papers/EarthSun.pdf

And whether this will be the same because of the speed of neutrinos?

This must have been going for a while now. Gyuri's second link is two years older than the first.

[AndrewT]

I'm not a physicist nor do I have a clue about what I am about to share. Bear with me.

The random nature of each individual atom deciding when to divide could be influenced by what is going on around it. I think the half life law confirms that.
A big lump of material sends out roughly twice as many indicators of a divide occurrence than a lump with half that amount of material in a fixed time period (the Half Life).
But each individual atom does not know how many other atoms are in the lump. The atoms fire off as if they knew they were part of a big lump or a small lump, otherwise there would be a tendency for all the atoms to divide at the same time. The rate of division would become random. But we know that the rate of division is controlled by the size, or number of neigbours to each individual atom.
The atom divide occasion is completely random. I'd suggest it isn't random. The divide is influenced by the other particles (parts of atoms) to let it fire off. Maybe some other non atomic particles can affect the timing of the divide.
Let's stretch this a bit further. Suppose when the atom that is preparing to fire off, is becoming less stable. The orbits of the bits and pieces of what makes up the atom are bouncing off or influencing each other in a less predictable manner.

Should an external particle have any influence on this instability that is increasing up to the time of divide? With my lack of knowledge, I cannot see see why an external particle should not have an influence on the stability of the atom's structure. The arrival of an extra particle could help stabilise the structure or do the opposite, destabilise (promote increased instability). These two different effects could either delay or bring forward the random divide that was about to happen.

It's much like the effect of increasing the mass of material until it becomes critical (self sustaining at firing off each other) so that we get a continuous and much increased rate of heat. The Half Life no longer applies because the adjacent atoms influence the atoms nearby and they fire off early.

Does anyone feel inclined to develop this using real PHYSICS AS A BASIS?