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Author Topic:   Question About the Universe
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 323 of 373 (741610)
11-13-2014 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 319 by zaius137
11-13-2014 12:07 PM


Re: C-14 in coal and oil
The Pot writes:
Unfortunately, there is not much science coming out of coal mines these days.
The Kettle writes:
Good post. very substantive. Cheers!

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 319 by zaius137, posted 11-13-2014 12:07 PM zaius137 has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 325 of 373 (741632)
11-13-2014 1:36 PM
Reply to: Message 324 by JonF
11-13-2014 12:53 PM


Re: sn 1987A -- simple math distance calculation
Yes, but we can put some tight boundaries on the possible extent of such variation from astrophysics, and from the heat/radiation problem. See Heat and radiation destroy claims of accelerated nuclear decay.
Tight enough for some purposes. Perhaps not tight enough to rule out 'gap' theory creationism which allows for an old earth.
I'll admit that I haven't totally thought this through. I don't see any motivation to do so given the poor evidence that there are any significant variations in decay rates. The Fischbach and Jenkins solar flare detector does not even work. There's just enough chaff in the air to give hope to a creationist.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 324 by JonF, posted 11-13-2014 12:53 PM JonF has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 348 of 373 (741744)
11-14-2014 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 344 by RAZD
11-14-2014 3:30 AM


Re: sn 1987A -- nothing to do with age of universe
It's not an assumption, it's an observation that similar results are seen from different sources.
Can you demonstrate this to be the case? We're talking about an effect that may not even be real, and in any event is barely above the measurement noise for the few elements in which the effect has been reported. There is zero evidence that the effect is the same for all decay rates.
We know that most decay rates are unaffected by temperature, pressure, chemical activity, etc. But the decay rates (electron capture) of a few nuclei are affected by ionization or pressure.
zaius137 is talking about an 'effect', which may be instrument noise, that has been detected only in a few specific nuclei, none of which are used for dating purposes. So despite the fact that zaius137's position is based on shear speculation and hope, so are arguments that we know that all nuclei behave similarly with respect to this 'effect'.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 344 by RAZD, posted 11-14-2014 3:30 AM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 359 by RAZD, posted 11-14-2014 6:20 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 349 of 373 (741749)
11-14-2014 11:53 AM
Reply to: Message 342 by zaius137
11-14-2014 3:01 AM


Re: C-14 in diamonds is native.
The mechanism for creating C-14 in diamonds just got more complicated.
Fair question.
This is actually a non-issue for the diamonds in the Baumgarder experiments as those turned out not to have any C-14 in them at all.
That said we still need to explain why we find C-14 in fossil fuels, so an answer to your question is appropriate. The most ready source of neutrons comes from some of the decay products in the Uranium-Thorium decay chain. A few of the nuclei can undergo spontaneous fission which releases neutrons. Neutron collisions with relatively low molecular weight atoms (including carbon but hydrogen works best) produces thermal neutrons.
Besides that, there are a few nuclei which emit neutrons directly. I don't know whether there are any significant numbers of these to be found in nature, and I don't see any real reason to look them up.
This is not information that would be found easily from googling, and I don't see much excessive condescending so I'm not dinging you for not knowing this time.
By the way, that smug, condescension you applied to Pressie regarding C-14 production was properly. You were actually right and then applied the heavy smackdown. Try to remember the process in the future. Or just read the posts were you were smacked down. There are lots of them.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 342 by zaius137, posted 11-14-2014 3:01 AM zaius137 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 350 by JonF, posted 11-14-2014 12:12 PM NoNukes has replied
 Message 365 by zaius137, posted 11-17-2014 3:21 AM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 351 of 373 (741767)
11-14-2014 12:23 PM
Reply to: Message 345 by zaius137
11-14-2014 4:43 AM


Re: sn 1987A -- nothing to do with age of universe
Even if it does, you expect me to believe that the decay deviation is outside the standard deviation for these elements.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Because of course RAZD would want to show that the measured decay deviation was well within the standard deviation.
The importance of measurements showing constant decay rates is this:
You are pinning your hopes on an effect that if it actually exists, is extremely tiny and which, if annually cyclic, would produce (to a first order approximation) no effect on decay rate measured dates. You are forced to hope that the measured effect portends something much more significant. Can't really blame you for doing so. Many creationists are doing this.
Even the solar flares do not produce a consistent effect on decay rates. Apparently we are to believe that they sometime make decay rates increase, sometimes decrease. Jenkins and Fischbach made numerous attempts to make excuses for why some large flares were detected and some were not to the European patent office, but were ultimately unable to come up with a method of correlating flares to decay rates and they did not receive their European patent. In the US, the patent examiner issued their patents based on some affidavits from the inventors swearing that the invention worked.
But to the point RAZD has made.
You actually need large, and probably non-cyclic deviations for the currently measured values if you want to resolve the issues associated with dating methods. Tiny non-cyclic changes mean tiny changes in dates. Yet those larger variations, non-cyclic are not in evidence at all. Not even near a distant supernova such as SN1987a. Completely different star, undergoing a supernova, completely different solar distances, and yet consistent decay rates hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 345 by zaius137, posted 11-14-2014 4:43 AM zaius137 has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 354 of 373 (741792)
11-14-2014 1:30 PM
Reply to: Message 350 by JonF
11-14-2014 12:12 PM


Re: C-14 in diamonds isn't native.
Do you happen to know if the 230Th and its daughter elements produce neutrons that could drive the 14N-14C transition?
I don't think neutron energies are much of an issue. Neutrons can be 'thermalized' by undergoing a few collisions with light nuclei like carbon and hydrogen. Both are present in fossil fuel, and of course there must be at least carbon where there is coal.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 350 by JonF, posted 11-14-2014 12:12 PM JonF has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 360 of 373 (741904)
11-15-2014 2:36 PM
Reply to: Message 359 by RAZD
11-14-2014 6:20 PM


Re: sn 1987A and constant decay rates
To be clear, what we see from numerous sources is that decay rates are overall constant -- even in cases where minor variation (<1%) occurs it is cyclic so the average decay rate over the period of oscillation is constant, so there is no observed effect on any age calculations, especially when you consider that the margin of error is often more than this.
Both your argument and that of zaius137 have the same issues.
1. We don't know the cause of the effect.
2. The evidence we have regarding constant rates from SN1987a does not involve either the same nuclei that Fischbach and Jenkins studied nor any of the isotopes that are used for dating purposes. We don't measure dates with Cobalt 60 for example.
On balance you have the better position because there is absolutely no evidence that the effect can be great and plenty of reason to believe that the effect does not even exist.
What we do know is that the tiny effects that we can have on decay rates by applying known means are not constant for all isotopes. We can affect the decay rate of 7Be and a few other elements by amounts of the order of 1% by applying pressure. The majority of nuclei do not show similar effects.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/...rticle/pii/S0370269309008478
No, we have evidence of essentially constant decay rates for significant periods of time, constant enough that age calculations are not affected.
For some nuclei, including some of the ones used for dating, Yes. And there is also the consillience with non-atomic dates to consider as well.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 359 by RAZD, posted 11-14-2014 6:20 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 361 by RAZD, posted 11-16-2014 7:39 PM NoNukes has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 363 of 373 (742097)
11-16-2014 10:15 PM
Reply to: Message 362 by JonF
11-16-2014 7:57 PM


Re: sn 1987A and constant decay rates
40k - > 40Ar is electron capture. I don't know if all electron captures are the same.
If you mean with respect to sensitivity to pressure, then no, they are not all the same.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 362 by JonF, posted 11-16-2014 7:57 PM JonF has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 364 of 373 (742098)
11-17-2014 12:49 AM
Reply to: Message 361 by RAZD
11-16-2014 7:39 PM


Re: sn 1987A and constant decay rates
So we still have less than 1% variation. Much less than what is necessary to turn 4.55 billion years into 6000.
Yes. But the point was merely to show that not all decays are affected in the same way external processes. I can cite an extreme example that we've discussed in these fora before:
How to Change Nuclear Decay Rates
quote:
A 1996 paper discusses this bound-state decay of bare-nucleus rhenium-187. Whereas neutral rhenium-187 has a half-life of 42 10^9 years, the authors measured fully ionised rhenium-187 to have a half life of just 33 years! They discuss the cosmological implications of the altered half life of rhenium-187 in various degrees of ionisation in stellar interiors, and what that implies for our knowledge of galactic ages.
But even this particular example is not really the point. Which is that speculating on how an unknown mechanism might or might not operate on different nuclei in similar ways, or speculating on whether the effect might be amplified under certain conditions is not really an air tight argument.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 361 by RAZD, posted 11-16-2014 7:39 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 367 of 373 (742117)
11-17-2014 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 365 by zaius137
11-17-2014 3:21 AM


Re: C-14 in diamonds is native.
I did not provide a reference because I was referencing information provided by another poster. It seems likely that he is correct about the identification of instrument error. Baumgardner's rebuttal is just speculation.
One complaint I have about your participation here is that you simply fall silent about issues too difficult for you to address. In this case, the bulk of my post was regarding sources of neutrons for producing C-14 from the N-14 resident in a carbon source. We already know that such sources include diamonds.
Until you've addressed that, you have nothing to crow about. It's relatively easy to produce non-age related C-14 in a diamond.
quote:
Diamonds supposedly 1—3 billion years old similarly yielded carbon-14 ages of only 55,000 years.
quote:
The conclusion affirms C-14 in unusual high amounts in diamond samples.
Given that the limits for measuring ages is somewhere around 55000 years, the diamonds apparently contain only small trace amounts of C-14.
And perhaps Baumgardner's explanation is BS...
quote:
Precisely how the silver powder might be producing the observed trend is not clear. Indeed, the authors acknowledge their inability to provide a confident explanation.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 365 by zaius137, posted 11-17-2014 3:21 AM zaius137 has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 368 of 373 (742119)
11-17-2014 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 366 by JonF
11-17-2014 8:15 AM


Re: C-14 in diamonds is native.
Now there's a knee-slapper! Both the presence and absence of silver powder cause the effeect, therefor the effect is caused by silver powder!
In context, I don't see the inconsistency in this claim. Baumgardner is saying that there was no ion-current variation when there was no silver powder present.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

This message is a reply to:
 Message 366 by JonF, posted 11-17-2014 8:15 AM JonF has not replied

  
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