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Author Topic:   Starlight and Time---question that must be answered
ps418
Inactive Member


Message 9 of 84 (3145)
01-30-2002 9:28 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by John Paul
01-30-2002 4:19 PM


quote:
Originally posted by John Paul:
John Paul:
Add to that the fact that we have observed a billion fold increase in decay rates under certain conditions and you have more than enough for the objective person to be skeptical of that technique.

Unfortunately, the so-called "billion-fold increase" would not affect radiometric age unless the entire earth was superheated to a plasma state.
I doubt that even the most catastrophic of catastrophists believes that the earth was heated to a plasma state at any point after it originated.
Woodmorappe et al. didn't seem too eager to point that out. Wonder why? The following critique is from:
Modifications of Nuclear Beta Decay Rates
From the thread "Decay Rates"
Post of the Month: March 2001
by David Ewan Kahana

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/mar01.html
will now conclude with a few remarks on the relevance of this silly and massively dishonest article to radioactive dating and geological time scales. I am doing no more than to repeat points that others have made here, but I have added a couple of numbers, just for fun.
Large atoms as we know'em and like'em, namely at all temperatures important for questions of rock formation, can be thought of as being essentially neutral when it comes to calculating their beta decays.
It is these kinds of atoms that make up rocks, whether molten or solid, and that of course includes the rocks in Woodmorappe's head. One does not typically find Rhenium atoms in charge states like 75+. It took quite a few talented people working at a complicated and expensive facility, using an accelerator like the one at GSI, to produce a useable number of these exotic objects for their experiment. To see just how absurd the discussion Woodmorappe gives of the earth's origins actually is, it's worth making a couple of simple order of magnitude estimates.
First, the gravitational binding energy of the earth can be roughly estimated from the formula for a uniform sphere:
B = 3/5 G m^2 / r
Taking approximate values r=6500 km, m=6x10^24 kg, and G = 6.67 x 10^-11 m^3 / kg / s^2, this gives:
B = 2.2 x 10^36 J.
This corresponds to a binding energy per unit mass of:
b = 3.7 x 10^7 J / kg,
or a binding energy fraction (dividing b by c^2) for the earth of:
f (earth) = 4 x 10^-10.
What sort of conditions are required to make 75+ the expected charge state of Rhenium? Here I am going to play very fast and loose with my estimates. If the separation energy of the first electron in Rhenium is about 9 eV, and that of the last is about 90 keV, that suggests a total binding energy of about 500 KeV for all of the electrons. To separate the last electron we thus need a temperature at least on the order of 10^9 K, while smaller temperatures would suffice for ionizing the rest of the outer electrons. We shall need to approach charge states of 72+, 73+ or more preferrably 74+, I'ld bet, in order to see very strong effects on the beta decay lifetime. If the K-shell is completely empty in Osmium, then capture to the L-shell is energetically allowed, but it is greatly suppressed over K-capture. So perhaps T = 10^8 K might be sufficient. To approach this kind of temperatures in the current universe, we shall need to make a descent into the core of a supergiant star. Or perhaps we could wait around for the shock wave of a supernova explosion to hit us. So while the result discussed in the article concerning bound state beta decays of fully ionized Rhenium seems possibly to be very interesting for astrophysics, it is certainly quite irrelevant for any estimates of the age of terrestrial rocks.
Patrick
[This message has been edited by ps418, 01-30-2002]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by John Paul, posted 01-30-2002 4:19 PM John Paul has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 13 by John Paul, posted 01-31-2002 9:09 AM ps418 has not replied

  
ps418
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 84 (3352)
02-03-2002 3:46 PM


Originally posted by TrueCreation:
I'm still awating the book to arive.... Untill I get it, would anyone like to give or sell me some of their old reading material, John paul, or anyone else? Creationary or Evolutionary work.
Howdy TC-
I'm not sure what you're looking for in particular, but I have a load of books to sell -paleontology, geology and so on that I'd like to seel. Feel free to drop me a line anytime at ps418@aol.com. I'd be happy to help you find what you're looking for at a decent price. In general, you may also want to check out Amazon.com Zshops, Ebay, and Half.com. I've saved hundreds of dollars this way.
Be Well,
Patrick

  
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