Okay...I'm too curious. JonF threw this up in the Coffee House and it got closed, but it is bugging me because I don't even know what it implies or why it would imply it.
JonF gave
this link the text of which is written by a person for whom English is not the primary language (in case any one cant get past the broken English).
Part of the link says:
There is also so much potassium in sea (380 ppm) that I calculated that
energy of decay of K-40 alone would have heated seawater not just
steaming hot but also boiled most of it, if not all seas.
Most of K-40 has decayd since origin of earth so that potassium was 11x more radioactive 4.5 billion yrs ago than it is nowadays.
The fellow seems to be implying that:
- X amount of K-40 has decayed since the origin of the earth
- If the earth is only 6000 years old then the energy released from X amount of K-40 decaying would vaporize the oceans, etc.
- Therefore the earth is 4.5 billion years old
Did I correctly ascertain the fellow's reasoning and conclusion?
If not, what IS his reasoning and conclusion?
If I did, doesn't his reasoning hinge on knowing the initial amount of K-40 at the time of the earth's origin? Has that initial amount of K-40 been established? How were we able to determine the initial amount of K-40 so that we may confidently assert that "most of the K-40 has decayd [sic] since the origin of the earth?" Were any assumptions used to determine the original amount of K-40? What were those assumptions?
Thanks,
--TheLit
AbE: This would go in Dates and Dating I presume...maybe Geology and the Great Flood.
This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 03-09-2005 06:46 AM
This message has been edited by TheLiteralist, 03-09-2005 06:49 AM
™ Version 4.2