Many people in this debate are familiar with the "problem" of Polonium halos,
however this thread is not about Polonium halos, and any further mention is off topic (see
PRATT CF201: Polonium Halos).
Anyone wanting to talk about Polonium halos is free to start their own thread, and not clutter this one up, thanks.
Where I am starting is from Dr Wiens:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html
quote:
13. "Radiation halos" in rocks prove that the Earth was young.
This refers to tiny halos of crystal damage surrounding spots where radioactive elements are concentrated in certain rocks. Halos thought to be from polonium, a short-lived element produced from the decay of uranium, have been found in some rocks. ...
At any rate, halos from uranium inclusions are far more common. Because of uranium's long half-lives, these halos take at least several hundred million years to form. Because of this, most people agree that halos provide compelling evidence for a very old Earth.
(bold added for empHASis, part deleted not about uranium halos)
The stock YEcreationist response is that the decay rates changed, and thus all you are seeing is the result of
fast decay rather than
long time.
Aside from this being another PRATT (see
CF210: Constancy of Radioactive Decay)
which is also off topic and not part of this thread, it struck me that Uranium halos are evidence that this did not occur.
The basic radiohalo principle is simple: radioactivity produces alpha decay, and the alpha particle have a certain energy (usually measured in million electron volts, MeV) based on the familiar e=mc² formula and the conservation of energy/mass (
see ref):
M1 = M2 + mp + e/c²
Thus when you have isotopes decaying into other isotopes by alpha decay, the energy of the alpha particle is
unique to that decay stage because of the unique before and after mass of the decaying isotope and the constant mass of the alpha particle.
This unique energy then determines how far (on average) an alpha particle will travel before it decays and the result is a halo or a number of halos around decaying inclusions that look like rings, but are actually spherical, and something like this:
The halos require more than one particle to form as each one only makes a point on the ring. Thus uranium, with it's long half-life, takes "several hundred million years to form."
Now the fun part: this is based on our knowledge of physics and the physical constants that tell us how things behave in the universe, so what happens if you have
fast decay instead of old time?
Not being a physicist, I am not familiar with the equations that link decay rate to decay energy, so I am going on memory, but I found this interesting tid-bit in
Alpha Decay, Alpha detectors and identification:
quote:
However, if the alpha has enough energy to surmount this barrier then it will regain that energy as electrostatic repulsion once it gets outside the range of the attractive strong nuclear force. One important consequence of this is that all alpha emissions have at least ~5 MeV energy. Furthermore, half-life is inversely related to decay energy.
(bold for empHASis)
Very simply put, if you change the decay rate, you change the decay energy, and the diameter of the halo changes.
There should be no characteristic uranium halos with the unique energy of uranium alpha decay from
fast decay.
The existence of (common) uranium halos then is evidence that shows the physical constants have not changed while they were formed, and their formation in turn is evidence that the earth is old, at least several hundred million years old.
Enjoy.
ps - I would appreciate any of the physics mavens supplying confirmation of my rambling, and possibly provide the equation/s relating decay rate to decay energy. Thanks.
DATES AND DATING forum please (I am thinking this is another correlation item)
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