polonium halos

Thanks Phideaux, I would expect you to so that you can see that I have not biased my measurements.Can you tell me why your 214Po and 218Po circles are outside the 214Po and 218Po rings? (And why are your pictures a different hue?)The 214Po circle does not match any of the 214Po ring and the 218Po halo only matches at the top of the 218Po ring, where there appears to be a much wider area of damage that extends the width of the diagonal band of coloration, and is outside the ring elsewhere.This means you have missed the target, and you need to scale the picture up more. This will make your "210Po" measurement larger. And you are already at the half-way point between 210Po and 222Rn while you have missed the two outer rings.This is similar to my last picture in Message 255, when I intentionally forced the 210Po ring to match half-way between the 210Po and 222Rn ring, and demonstrating that you cannot eliminate 222Rn without missing the outer rings. While here you match these two outside rings, but your 210Po circle is outside the 210Po ring all the way around.In other words you are not consistent and have biased your data. Do you remember where I said that the curve of α energy versus ring diameter was not a smooth curve? It was Message 255, and I have gone back to that and rotated it and blown it up for easier visibility: As noted, I used this curve to generate radii for 230Th and 234U inside the 226Ra circle. These are the numbers in red above.Then I relaxed the curve at the 210Po point to see what a smoother curve would generate for this radius, then I did the same thing with the original curve relaxed at the 222Rn point:Curve estimated 210Po value = 19.55 μm: Curve estimated 222Rn value = 20.35 μm: My conclusion from this is that the natural separation of these rings is less than what we see in the published data: in each case the estimate moves by 0.15 μm: toward the other ring. This, of course, makes distinguishing one ring from the other more difficult (as in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rings of the 238U halo where the overall distance between 2 and 4 is 0.47 μm, or half the distance from 210Po to 222Rn). One explanation for the disparity is that early damage affects penetration of later damage, however this would apply across the board due to the short half-lives involved, so I rule this out. Another reason could just be that the results are empirical data and there is a statistical spread, with many more measurements of some rings than of others, and variation from rock to rock.However, I don't see reason to expect a larger separation, rather I see reason to expect a smaller separation, thus making your problem with the outer rings even more acute.As it sits, neither of your circle sets match the pictures, nor are they consistent from one to the other.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : correct picture

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Thanks Phydeaux, I see you have changed your pictures. Curiously that leaves me skeptical of your unaltered argument, for you've changed the rings but not the data? So the picture I made before, the one that makes a "best case" for no 222Rn, the one that does show that there is still damage outside the 210Po ring, that is correct now? The pictures I've used are downloaded from Gentry's website. I would expect him to have the same or higher resolution pictures there compared to what you could get scanning an image that is printed to fit a book.Creation's Tiny Mystery: Radiohalo Catalogue, Plate 8
http://www.halos.com/images/ctm-rc-8-b.jpg And in that picture of mine there is 222Rn damage between the outside of the 210Po circle and the 222Rn circle. Here it is again: This was done using the extreme side of the damage rings to anticipate your questioning of where to measure the rings. Assuming a margin of error of 1/3 of the gap between 210Po and 222Rn, or +/- 3 μm, we have a range of likely measurements from 19.1 to 19.7 μm for 210Po and from 20.2 to 20.8 μm for 222Rn.For this picture to not have 222Rn the 210Po halo measurement has to be at 20.24 μm circle shown for 222Rn. That is outside the margin of error for 210Po, but inside the margin of error for 222Rn, so logically this has to be 222Rn.Put another way, I should be able to draw a circle at the outside margin of error - 19.7 μm - and contain all the damage at the center of the halo, and you didn't and I can't.Strangely I also measure the 210Po ring on that picture at 19.07 μm, which is inside the margin of error for 210Po: So on that picture I measure the three polonium rings correctly, according to you, and I still have some left over damage that fits 222Rn much better than it fits 210Po. I find the rings to be a little elliptical taller than wide. Just that you were inconsistent and have now changed your pictures.Not surprisingly, you conclusion is what I expect from someone pre-committed to the idea that these halos are something special. Yep, wonder why he didn't ... wouldn't he want people to replicate his measurements rather than just look at them in awe?Enjoy.

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Well, my point was to make the result as favorable for those who don't accept the 222Rn presence, not to make the case stronger for 222Rn.When I scale it by 34.5/34.08 I get

Isotope    data    circle    scaled     ratio 
210Po     19.4     19.07     19.31     99.5%
222Rn     20.5     20.24     20.49     99.9%
218Po     23.5     23.5      23.79    101.2%
214Po     34.5     34.08     34.5     100.0%

Note that 34.5 μm is Schindler's radius, and that he also has 19.3 for 210Po, making that one 100.03% of the published data, in essence only leaving the 218Po ring as a slight anomaly. So I thought I would see what this looked like, and scaled the picture and circles to match this outer ring value. To make the circles fit the decay pattern the same way for 222Rn and 218Po as they do for the 210Po and 214Po rings, I made some adjustments to these in-between circles, and added radial lines so you con compare the relative position of circle and ring along each radial.And I then get this picture: And these values:

Isotope    data    circle     ratio 
210Po     19.3     19.3     100.0%
222Rn     20.5     20.3      99.0%
218Po     23.5     23.7     100.9%
214Po     34.5     34.5     100.0%

And I would have to say that a maximum 1% error means this is a pretty good fit all around for 222Rn halo evidence.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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