Getting out of the solar core, neutrinos are speed demons, photons are slugs. h/t to Leif Svalgaard for the graphical annotation inspiration. Solar core image from NASA.
In August, WUWT carried a story that was rather shocking: some physicists published claims they have detected a variation in earthly radioactive decay rates, big news by itself, but the shocker is they attributed it to solar neutrinos.
The findings attracted immediate attention because they seemed to violate two known basic facts of physics:
1. Radioactive decay is a constant
2. Neutrinos very rarely interact with matter and are hard to detect when they do.
For example: trillions of the neutrinos are zipping through your body right now. So why would they interact with radioactive elements in a more detectable way?
WUWT carried a follow-up story, citing doubts. Now there’s confirmation via experiment that the initial doubt was a fluke.
From the NIST: Research Shows Radiometric Dating Still Reliable (Again)
Recent puzzling observations of tiny variations in nuclear decay rates have led some to question the science of using decay rates to determine the relative ages of rocks and organic materials. Scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with researchers from Purdue University, the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Wabash College, tested the hypothesis that solar radiation might affect the rate at which radioactive elements decay and found no detectable effect.
Atoms of radioactive isotopes are unstable and decay over time by shooting off particles at a fixed rate, transmuting the material into a more stable substance. For instance, half the mass of carbon-14, an unstable isotope of carbon, will decay into nitrogen-14 over a period of 5,730 years. The unswerving regularity of this decay allows scientists to determine the age of extremely old organic materials—such as remains of Paleolithic campfires—with a fair degree of precision. The decay of uranium-238, which has a half-life of nearly 4.5 billion years, enabled geologists to determine the age of the Earth.
Many scientists, including Marie and Pierre Curie, Ernest Rutherford and George de Hevesy, have attempted to influence the rate of radioactive decay by radically changing the pressure, temperature, magnetic field, acceleration, or radiation environment of the source. No experiment to date has detected any change in rates of decay.
Recently, however, researchers at Purdue University observed a small (a fraction of a percent), transitory deviation in radioactive decay at the time of a huge solar flare. Data from laboratories in New York and Germany also have shown similarly tiny deviations over the course of a year. This has led some to suggest that Earth’s distance from the sun, which varies during the year and affects the planet’s exposure to solar neutrinos, might be related to these anomalies.
Researchers from NIST and Purdue tested this by comparing radioactive gold-198 in two shapes, spheres and thin foils, with the same mass and activity. Gold-198 releases neutrinos as it decays. The team reasoned that if neutrinos are affecting the decay rate, the atoms in the spheres should decay more slowly than the atoms in the foil because the neutrinos emitted by the atoms in the spheres would have a greater chance of interacting with their neighboring atoms. The maximum neutrino flux in the sample in their experiments was several times greater than the flux of neutrinos from the sun. The researchers followed the gamma-ray emission rate of each source for several weeks and found no difference between the decay rate of the spheres and the corresponding foils.
According to NIST scientist emeritus Richard Lindstrom, the variations observed in other experiments may have been due to environmental conditions interfering with the instruments themselves.
“There are always more unknowns in your measurements than you can think of,” Lindstrom says.
* R.M. Lindstrom, E. Fischbach, J.B. Buncher, G.L. Greene, J.H. Jenkins, D.E. Krause, J.J. Mattes and A. Yue. Study of the dependence of 198Au half-life on source geometry. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment. doi:10.1016/j.nima.2010.06.270
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This is just a falsification that neutrinoes affect radioactive decay and not a falsification of the sun influencing the decay rate. There might be other mechanisems at work here.
Radioactive decay is not a constant it is a rarely changing variable. There’s is a strong and growing body of evidence that something is changing the decay rates and branching ratios in several reaction. The mainstream is trying to ignore the data from repeated replications of the Fleischmann Pons effect and other similar work. http://www.lenr-canr.org/ covers this work. so does http://www.infinite-energy.com/ but it ventures way out side the box.
There is also the Rate work that proved that there’s an anomaly in granite. The granite has not got enough He trapped in it to correspond with the decay path assumed and the he cant leak out significantly. http://austore.creation.com/catalog/radioisotopes-earth-p-241.html?osCsid=jfk3m3r1a11phme50m2620l1v3
Yes its creationist work because only someone already out side the box is allowed to look at this stuff.
When accelerations occur we are not talking about the normal decay pathway being spend up. We are talking about the elements skipping to another path that has the same products.
Those testing this phenomenon need to look at the polonium halo work and embed an isotope in silicon or quartz. As the decay paths switch they will get high electrons decay products burning rings in the silicate. The radius from the sample will give you the new decay path.
While most here are able to ‘think out side the box’ on climate there’s is a strong tendency to run back into the box and lock your self in when cosmology or origins comes up. Be brave enough to look through Galileo’s telescope. Only by not looking can you be blind to the future of science. The truths you were taught are not all that robust. The lies you were taught are falling. Your in the loop on the fall of the climate change myth, The same people in academia fight tooth and nail against creationism, cold fusion and the non big bang cosmologies. If their wrong on one why not all three. All three are looking at variable decay rates in different contexts.
Now there’s confirmation via experiment that the initial doubt was a fluke.
Not “doubt”, you must mean “measurement” .
Or, “the initial doubts were valid” is another way of saying this.
An interesting experiment, that by passes the standard model of physics, it says: suppose neutrinos do more than the standard model attributes to them, let us measure it. Very good.
As I said in the previous thread, if the effect is not the result of unknown errors entering the mix, I think it might be proof that the space time changed at that time, changing the decay constants. Maybe the sun system hit some dark matter :).
That 200,000 year solar photon escape time suggests there must be a very strong solar ‘greenhouse effect’ there. “It’s the sun …”
This is my post at the time:
Despite my hypotheses of Sun- Earth electro-magnetic linkage I am sceptic on this particular issue, at least until we know more details.
Radio active decay produces alpha and beta particles and gamma rays.
– Alpha particle consists of protons neutrons usually bound together into a particle identical to a helium nucleus.
– Beta particles are high-energy, high-speed electrons or positrons
– gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation of high frequency.
Alpha and beta are charged particles and both are deflected by the geomagnetic field, which varies with seasons and during strong flares may even change as much as 10% depending on latitude. The effect would be greatest on the alpha particles since they can travel only a few centimetres in the air. It is the gamma radiation intensity which is the critical factor in ascertaining stability of its decay.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/23/teleconnected-solar-flares-to-earthly-radioactive-decay/#comment-465161
Well as I said in my original comment if true it was interesting but my gut instinct was that it was a digital difficulty: otherwise known as finger trouble.
And in a later post I pointed out that the first thing to do was to try and verify it using different measuring techniques to see whether it was real or an artifact of the measuring technique used. Because that is what physics and science is all about.
So now we have the answer.
Kindest Regards.
How refreshing to see Normal Science at work. Repeat the experiment to see if the original results are replicated, and if they are not replicated then the hypothesis is thrown out. And no one throws their dummy out of the pram in the process.
The Gold-198 work is useful but probably does not help. If it is neutrinos then we would expect that something in the earth or moon has slowed them down. There are several neutron bases reactions that will not occur with fast neutrons but will if something, heavy water, slows them down. we barely know what the earth’s core is made of. Iron nickel but in what state. What are its properties relative to a passing Neutrino. What slows down a neutrino this is the 64 dollar question.
Note Gold 198 decays by losing a neutron what we would be looking for is a decay path that stabilises the isotope by converting an excess proton into a neutron via the quantum capture of both a neutron and an inner orbital electron. Turning gold into mercury. Reverse Alchemy. In half the non big bang theories the neutrino is a high energy high frequency photon like non particle that is the orbital velocity of the bound sub nuclear electron in the neutron. I.E. The Neutron is a proton and a electron bound at the neutron diameter with a binging energy and velocity of the neutrino mass in E=MC^2 Like light it it is emitted because the electron can’t carry the change in velocity as energy.
It goes to basic logic that if neutrinos exist as either a particle with mass or a photon with only energy there must be a sink to match the source otherwise we would be bathed with an infinite flux and would never have localised the source. Since we detect them via detecting an event where they are captured in water then why is it inconceivable that they world react with planetary core to slow down or once slowed would react more readily with an isotope. As with climatology it is not the theory that is obviously wrong but the assumptions that precede the theory.
Where is the observations, the experimental proof, that protons take 200,000 years to travel from the core to the surface.
How do you falsify that which you cannot observe or measure. you cant, you have to either take it on trust or rely on maths. Well maths proved the earth centric view of the solar system!
So that leaves you with a pretty lame hypothesis but a good story.
Most probably, neutrinos have nothing to do with deviations in radioactive decay during solar flares. The very existence of neutrinos is under question; it hasn’t been proven in any experiment.
I think the same relativistic effect that makes aluminum-ion clocks diverge at different heights (at different distances from the large concentration of energy/mass) is the reason for these observed deviations in radioactive decay. Solar flares are quick and large changes in energy/mass distribution.
Of course, in its own system of space-time coordinates the rate of decay is constant for any given source. But there is always a distance, however small, between the observers and the source. Time always flows somewhat differently in different points of space (or, conversely, distances always measure somewhat differently at different moments of time). A curvature of the space-time is changing when a local distribution of mass is changing. Hence the observed change of the rate of decay.
I think one of the points is if they have detected neutrinos from super novae, which for instance the KAMIOKANDE did.
OK, so newly created neutrinos don’t affect radioactive decay rates. That seems to be all this experiment proves.
What about all the other types of comic-rays and their decay products that shower down through us? Aren’t the intensity of these modulated by the Sun’s magnetic field?
“There are always more unknowns in your measurements than you can think of,” Lindstrom says.”
Never a truer word has been said … particularly if applied to climate “science”!
The comments to this story are depressingly unscientific and rather paranoid.
At the moment, no-one has replicated Fischbach et al’s result and there have been several independent tests which have shown no similar effect. Since Fischbach refuses to allow access to the original data, we can only hypothesize a systematic effect on the experiments.
“This is just a falsification that neutrinoes affect radioactive decay and not a falsification of the sun influencing the decay rate. There might be other mechanisems at work here.”
Correct – the only field physics has not tested radiogenic decay in is a changed electric field test. We have tested the magnetic, gravitational, temperature, pressure but not the electric field, yet every experiment testing the other fields was in the earth’s ambient electric field.
That’s not a fact although it’s widely regarded as one. Hence the surprise.
It’s really just an assumption based on a large but finite number of observations in a small window of time and space. It’s a hypothetical like Popper’s “all swans are white” subject to falsification by a contrary observation. Contrary observations came to light at least a few years ago and are undergoing scrutiny as they should be.
Still no mention of rotational effects that would curve this plane and the other slower photon has to rotate around.
Anthony, your second of the “basic facts of physics” states: “For example: trillions of the neutrinos are zipping through your body right now.” That should be corrected to read: “For example: billions of the neutrinos are zipping through your body right now.“
No. Radioactive decay is a quantum process which is entirely random. It is not simply an assumption, but also a prediction from an extremely well-attested physical theory.
The most parsimonious solution is that the original producers of the data had a systematic error in their experiments. When other equally-well done experiments have also found no effect, then the money’s on experimental error and not new physics.
From the previous article:
“Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.”
This is the original claim. It directly implies that being closer to the sun in winter, where the neutrino flux is greater, speeds up the decay rate. That is what I logically assumed they meant and it made sense. More neutrinos, greater decay rate if this were an actual effect of neutrinos hitting nuclei enhancing decay rates.
However, reading this article carefully, the following is the statement by NIST and Purdue that is testing on logic that the exact opposite that which the original team is claiming. They say the sphere would have a flux across atoms within the sphere which is greater that that with the foil, and that is correct, but they were looking for SLOWER rate of decay with greater flux. If I’m not mistaken, it is exactly opposite orientation of the experiment. Now if they can’t even keep the sign of the rates correct, should we assume their tests are perfect correct in spite? (or was this just written by a reported that didn’t really know what he was writing about in the first place) Hmm…
”The team reasoned that if neutrinos are affecting the decay rate, the atoms in the spheres should decay more slowly than the atoms in the foil because the neutrinos emitted by the atoms in the spheres would have a greater chance of interacting with their neighboring atoms.”
Now they say they see zero difference so, if correct, tends to disprove the effect no matter what the orientation is, faster or slower but it would be great if they would at least keep the logic correct.
John A says:
Excellent.
Many people believe theories and Laws are absolute and cannot be incorrect.
Meanwhile back at the lab….
I’m skeptical of the neutrino effect. If the decay rates are changed as much as claimed (0.1%), that is caused by a 7% variability in the neutron flux as the Earth goes round its orbit. That is, the dependence is about 70:1. That is pretty high for a particle that can travel through light-years of lead.
What this interpretation of the experimental observations implies is that there is a significant cross-section for neutrino interactions, at least with radioactive atoms. Atoms that decay by two different mechanisms (Ra-226 by alpha, and Si-32 by beta) are involved.
Now the planet Earth contains quite a bit of Ra-226, and loads of other radionuclides in the uranium and thorium decay chains, potassium-40, and the long-lived rare-earth nuclides. There must be a massive potential neutrino shield between us and the sun at night, which is not there in the daytime. If the theory is true, there should be a measurable diurnal variation in the solar neutrino flux at any given location (except the poles). I don’t think this has been observed, so I don’t believe the theory.
John A: The comments to this story are depressingly unscientific and rather paranoid.
Indeed. References to creationist pseudoscience, claims that neutrinos haven’t been observed … sheesh!
Dave Springer: It’s really just an assumption based on a large but finite number of observations in a small window of time and space.
And theoretical arguments that show some Really Really Bad side-effects would occur if radioactive decay rates were not constants. Add in the fact that those same theoretical arguments successfully predicted radioactivity in isotopes that everybody had previously thought were stable, and this particular bit of theory looks pretty solid.
The effect was obviously caused by the increased CO2 blanket around the Earth creating atomic instability by re-radiation of climate change inducing dark energy released by the solar flare.
😉
OK, so that is indicative of the effect not being caused by neutrinos, but if the effect is real that means the decay rate is changing based on some particle or physical interaction we are CLUELESS about – more discturbing and crazy indded!