From Stanford University News a really wild must read science discovery.
h/t to Leif Svalgaard and WUWT reader “carbon-based-life-form”.
The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements
When researchers found an unusual linkage between solar flares and the inner life of radioactive elements on Earth, it touched off a scientific detective investigation that could end up protecting the lives of space-walking astronauts and maybe rewriting some of the assumptions of physics.
BY DAN STOBER
It’s a mystery that presented itself unexpectedly: The radioactive decay of some elements sitting quietly in laboratories on Earth seemed to be influenced by activities inside the sun, 93 million miles away.
Is this possible?
Researchers from Stanford and Purdue University believe it is. But their explanation of how it happens opens the door to yet another mystery.
There is even an outside chance that this unexpected effect is brought about by a previously unknown particle emitted by the sun. “That would be truly remarkable,” said Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun.
The story begins, in a sense, in classrooms around the world, where students are taught that the rate of decay of a specific radioactive material is a constant. This concept is relied upon, for example, when anthropologists use carbon-14 to date ancient artifacts and
when doctors determine the proper dose of radioactivity to treat a cancer patient.
Random numbers
But that assumption was challenged in an unexpected way by a group of researchers from Purdue University who at the time were more interested in random numbers than nuclear decay. (Scientists use long strings of random numbers for a variety of calculations, but they are difficult to produce, since the process used to produce the numbers has an influence on the outcome.)
Ephraim Fischbach, a physics professor at Purdue, was looking into the rate of radioactive decay of several isotopes as a possible source of random numbers generated without any human input. (A lump of radioactive cesium-137, for example, may decay at a steady rate overall, but individual atoms within the lump will decay in an unpredictable, random pattern. Thus the timing of the random ticks of a Geiger counter placed near the cesium might be used to generate random numbers.)
As the researchers pored through published data on specific isotopes, they found disagreement in the measured decay rates – odd for supposed physical constants.
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.
Was this fluctuation real, or was it merely a glitch in the equipment used to measure the decay, induced by the change of seasons, with the accompanying changes in temperature and humidity?
“Everyone thought it must be due to experimental mistakes, because we’re all brought up to believe that decay rates are constant,” Sturrock said.
The sun speaks
On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.
If this apparent relationship between flares and decay rates proves true, it could lead to a method of predicting solar flares prior to their occurrence, which could help prevent damage to satellites and electric grids, as well as save the lives of astronauts in space.
The decay-rate aberrations that Jenkins noticed occurred during the middle of the night in Indiana – meaning that something produced by the sun had traveled all the way through the Earth to reach Jenkins’ detectors. What could the flare send forth that could have such an effect?
Jenkins and Fischbach guessed that the culprits in this bit of decay-rate mischief were probably solar neutrinos, the almost weightless particles famous for flying at almost the speed of light through the physical world – humans, rocks, oceans or planets – with virtually no interaction with anything.
Then, in a series of papers published in Astroparticle Physics, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research and Space Science Reviews, Jenkins, Fischbach and their colleagues showed that the observed variations in decay rates were highly unlikely to have come from environmental influences on the detection systems.
Reason for suspicion
Their findings strengthened the argument that the strange swings in decay rates were caused by neutrinos from the sun. The swings seemed to be in synch with the Earth’s elliptical orbit, with the decay rates oscillating as the Earth came closer to the sun (where it would be exposed to more neutrinos) and then moving away.
So there was good reason to suspect the sun, but could it be proved?
Enter Peter Sturrock, Stanford professor emeritus of applied physics and an expert on the inner workings of the sun. While on a visit to the National Solar Observatory in Arizona, Sturrock was handed copies of the scientific journal articles written by the Purdue researchers.
Sturrock knew from long experience that the intensity of the barrage of neutrinos the sun continuously sends racing toward Earth varies on a regular basis as the sun itself revolves and shows a different face, like a slower version of the revolving light on a police car. His advice to Purdue: Look for evidence that the changes in radioactive decay on Earth vary with the rotation of the sun. “That’s what I suggested. And that’s what we have done.”
A surprise
Going back to take another look at the decay data from the Brookhaven lab, the researchers found a recurring pattern of 33 days. It was a bit of a surprise, given that most solar observations show a pattern of about 28 days – the rotation rate of the surface of the sun.
The explanation? The core of the sun – where nuclear reactions produce neutrinos – apparently spins more slowly than the surface we see. “It may seem counter-intuitive, but it looks as if the core rotates more slowly than the rest of the sun,” Sturrock said.
All of the evidence points toward a conclusion that the sun is “communicating” with radioactive isotopes on Earth, said Fischbach.
But there’s one rather large question left unanswered. No one knows how neutrinos could interact with radioactive materials to change their rate of decay.
“It doesn’t make sense according to conventional ideas,” Fischbach said. Jenkins whimsically added, “What we’re suggesting is that something that doesn’t really interact with anything is changing something that can’t be changed.”
“It’s an effect that no one yet understands,” agreed Sturrock. “Theorists are starting to say, ‘What’s going on?’ But that’s what the evidence points to. It’s a challenge for the physicists and a challenge for the solar people too.”
If the mystery particle is not a neutrino, “It would have to be something we don’t know about, an unknown particle that is also emitted by the sun and has this effect, and that would be even more remarkable,” Sturrock said.
Chantal Jolagh, a science-writing intern at the Stanford News Service, contributed to this story.
anna v says:
If other solutions of the general relativity equations fit the data better, i.e. explain rotational imbalances without needing a dark mass hypothesis, they will eventually prevail. If they just solve one aspect but a number of other observations contradict the solution, which I am in no position to know, then the Big Bang will prevail by inertia.
That’s how is should be, not how it is. There have been so many ad hoc accretions to the current gravitation only paradigm to save the data that it gives the illusion of being able to explain more than alternative hypotheses, when in fact it can’t, because the ad hoc adjustments rob it of explanatory power. As we notice when we bump into anomalous results like this one.
rbateman says:
August 24, 2010 at 3:16 pm
No explanation, but a boatload of galaxy differential rotation diagrams show the very same distribution of speed.
The core of spirals are found to rotate slower, pick up speed as the outer core/spiral arm boundary is reached, then proceed to run at the highest rotation rate until the end of the arms provide no more redshift data observational opportunities.
And now, one is right back to the enigma of the very thing that dark matter was proposed to explain.
Welcome to the secrets of the universe we don’t understand….yet.
Anna v
Interesting observation. I have always wondered why, if dark matter is 75% of the universe it is not 75% of the sun’s innards:).
The only person who has successfully modeled the evolution of a spiral armed galaxy from simple first principles is Anthony Peratt on the Los Alamos super computer using plasma physics principles.
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/newsletters/npss/0306/peratt.html
http://www.plasma-universe.com/images/1/16/Peratt-galaxy-simulation.gif
Mainstream cosmologists don’t like electrical engineers encroaching on their turf however.
[[[CRS, Dr.P.H. asked “BTW, doesn’t this mess up the dating of Briffa’s proxies?” ]]]
I’m a young earth creationist. Creationist dating messes a lot of stuff up but Briffa’s proxies are safe. Too young. The effects increase with apparent age so anything AD is relatively safe. Note also the sign of this effect is wrong to matter.
The Briffa Carbon 14 dates could be out a little due to various effects. Fossil C12 eruptions from the Arctic sea bed, Changes in C14 production rates due to changes in the earth magnetic field intensity (confirmed change), selective up take of carbon 12 over carbon 14 in some species. The Briffa trees should be checked for that. Its a new problem. If there are errors in the assumed norms of carbon 14 production, persistence and decay then the effects are cumulative for older samples thus dates BC drift far further per-century BC fowling archaeology up and geology.
http://creation.com/radiometric-dating-questions-and-answers
Most creationist think there is a large error with the ice cores, their drilling into ice age ice and assuming is uniformly deposited over millennia. Its probably a few hundred years of ice age ice with 3000 years of compressed snow on top.
http://creation.com/the-lost-squadron
P.S. Briffa’s safe anyway; Mann’s algorithm ignored the mean and found the outliers. Dating is irrelevant if they’re using made up data.
Z says: August 24, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Finally,
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC7.htm
– does this bulge just rotate on its own, or does it point at something?
It is not pointing to anything known, rotates with sun, currently at ~ 240 degree heliocentric longitude, it slowly changes its coordinates with the passage of years.
Geoff Sharp says: August 24, 2010 at 5:48 pm
Did you do the research behind this graph?
No. The effect has been known to solar scientists for long time, SDJ from SC24 produced a file from Debrecen records, which I adapted for polar diagram.
“Alexander Feht says:
August 24, 2010 at 1:53 pm
son of mulder (and Philip T. Downman):
You assume that events on microcosmic scale (such as radioactive decay) necessarily happen within the same time frame as their macro-cosmic observation. This is, certainly, a point of view promulgated today in schools and colleges.
But how do you know?”
Not ‘know’ but assumption of causality, until I see evidence that Schrodinger’s cat can be poisoned before the microcosmic radioactive decay that triggers the macroscopic poison release has happened.
Since the flare is a day and a half after the slowing is detected, you can’t discount the possibility that the trigger is communicated to the sun as well as the earth, and it takes the sun a while to build up the flare. Guess I’d best go make a tinfoil hat.
tallbloke says:
August 24, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Paul Birch says: “No, they are established over practically the whole visible universe over practically its entire history. That’s the whole point. The whole edifice hangs together. If there were any inconstancy in them, the very stars and galaxies could not exist as we observe them. Change any one of those “constants” and the knock-on effects change everything.”
“Paul, please. How many times has the Hubble ‘constant’ been changed in the last 60 years”
First, the Hubble “constant” is not a fundamental physical constant; it’s a cosmological parameter with -dH/dt/H~10E-10/yr. It is well known to change over time. Second, changing an estimate is not the same as estimating a change. Some parameters, like H, are hard to measure accurately. Even the gravitational constant G is known only to ~1 part in 2000, yet it’s (lack of) variation across time and space, deltaG(x,t)/G, is nevertheless well established, because the uncertainty in the absolute value of G cancels out in the ratio.
Hey Barry L,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/23/teleconnected-solar-flares-to-earthly-radioactive-decay/#comment-464899
There are some things might want to consider about LaViolette and the death wave. Why did humans not die out? And there are some other sources of 10be…
An Interstellar Origin for the Beryllium 10 in CAIs and Implications for our Solar System.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003AAS…203.0701D
Beryllium 10 is a short-lived radionuclide (1.5 Myr half-life) that was incorporated live, at the birth of the solar system, into calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) in meteorites. The initial ratio of 10Be/9Be was 1 x 10-3. Beryllium 10 differs from other radionuclides in meteorites (e.g., aluminum 26) in that it must be formed by spallation reactions and not by nucleosynthesis, e.g. a supernova. Previous analyses also ruled out galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) as the source of the beryllium 10 and concluded that spallation reactions must have occurred in the solar nebula, due to energetic particles from the early Sun. We re-examine this conclusion by calculating the contributions from GCRs, both from spallation reactions and from trapping of 10Be GCRs as they lose energy passing through the molecular cloud core from which our solar system formed. To do so, we constrain the flux and composition of GCRs 4.5 Gyr ago and use numerical magnetohydrodynamic simulations of star formation to calculate the time-varying rate of entry of GCRs into a molecular cloud core. We find that spallation reactions by GCRs can account for 20% of the meteoritic 10Be in CAIs, and trapping of 10Be GCRs can account for 80%. Our uncertainties are about a factor of three. We conclude that contributions to 10Be from GCRs cannot be ruled out, and are capable of explaining all the 10Be in CAIs. These findings, together with the recent discovery that meteorites contained live iron 60 when they formed, strongly imply that our solar system formed in a high-mass-star forming region, near a supernova.
Key thing here is that Beryllium 10, irridium, nickel and gold is present in comets and meteorites. There is 10be in some volcanic activity.
Once upon a time there was this comet larger than Earth running around between the Sun and Jupiter that came apart a few thousand years ago. This is well known in professional circles, they just haven’t put it all together. Its bad, bad news to cross the core stream. I think its a possibility that this thing pulled Earth off its orbit, Malankovitch style.
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/full/seri/MNRAS/0251/0000636.000.html
http://stevepace.intuitwebsites.com/
OK, here is a bit more of why it cannot be neutrinos.
Neutrinos couple to other matter only with the weak interaction and gravity.
Here are the coupling constants http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/couple.html
if strong ( nuclear) is 1.
electromagnetic is 1/137
weak is 10^-6
gravity is 10^-36
A Feynman diagram is a prescription of how to construct the integral whose square is the crossection of a reaction happening. Coupling constants enter as factors, and each interaction gets its coupling constant. Now radioactive decays already have a weak constant. If a neutrino is introduced in the diagram, a second weak constant, multiplicative, appears so that gives a 10^-12, the square of that to get the decay function makes it 10^-24 without counting diminutions due to the shape of the functions under the integral. The neutrino effect is a 10^-12 factor smaller than the original decay probability. ( that is why it goes through the earth interacting very seldom)
They are talking of 0.2% variations.
It cannot be neutrinos. Gravitons, gravitinos etc have not been seen and cannot be calculated with the normal Feynman recipe.
I have a second Feynman story, the first is irrelevant to the discussion, while this is, slightly. It is straight from his mouth.
During the, I think it was called the Manhattan project, when they were scrambling to create the A bomb, all physicists were employed in doing the laborious cross section calculations, integrals within integrals, that took the best of them ( I think Schwinger and Bethe were there at the time) at least a week to calculate.
Feynman said that he clearly remembered when the idea of the diagrams came to him whole, ( I suppose like Athena from the head of Zeus). He said he remembered his position on his bed, his blue jean legs up the wall.
He started going to the meetings and reproducing the calculations the others had taken a week to do, overnight. When he got confidence that his method worked he started teasing them, by working on the problems and coming up with the solutions the next day.
This he related to us at the workshop, back in the 1980s, whence I have the first Feynman story.
“This is indeed the most profound and intriguing report I’ve seen for a very long time. Radioactive decay not constant? Who would have picked that? I imagine that, even now, teams of scientists are lining up to test this result.”
Well, it’s not quite as wacky as all that… as far as I know, the actual mechanisms for why/when radioactive decay happen are completely unknown, which is why scientists have to simply assign it a rate… a probability of decay within a given time period.
It could be that there’s a most definite trigger… maybe a decay only happens if a neutrino happens to interact with a given radioactive particle, juicing it enough to split up. The black box of radioactive decay has always bothered me. Chemistry doesn’t work like that… inputs lead to outputs in a very repeatable and understandable method.
While there could be detection issues, I’m intrigued that science might finally be focussing on an actual mechanism for a fundamental atomic behavior.
Joke: I hear Gore requested a refund of the cost of Patchy Moral’s book saying ‘i read it and tried it and it didn’t work….especially in Seattle!’
Anyway….remember this puppy:
‘………Using Very Low Frequency (VLF) wire antennas that resemble clotheslines, Prof. Price and his team monitored distant lightning strikes from a field station in Israel’s Negev Desert. Observing lightning signals from Africa, they noticed a strange phenomenon in the lightning strike data — a phenomenon that slowly appeared and disappeared every 27 days, the length of a single full rotation of the Sun.
“Even though Africa is thousands of miles from Israel, lightning signals there bounce off Earth’s ionosphere — the envelope surrounding Earth — as they move from Africa to Israel,” Prof. Price explains. “We noticed that this bouncing was modulated by the Sun, changing throughout its 27-day cycle. The variability of the lightning activity occurring in sync with the Sun’s rotation suggested that the Sun somehow regulates the lightning pattern.”
I wonder it these two stories are connected? However, I feel this story is wrong about the Telleconnected decay and the lightening phenom is ‘weather’ related.
..and With Anna all but removing Neutrinos as the prime suspect…this is really intriguing. Looking forward to Leif showing up.
Paul Birch says:
August 25, 2010 at 4:00 am
First, the Hubble “constant” is not a fundamental physical constant; it’s a cosmological parameter with -dH/dt/H~10E-10/yr. It is well known to change over time.
Not by the amount it has been changed by the shifting goalposts of the BB theory though. And if it’s a ‘parameter’ these days, it used to be a ‘constant’. That’s why it was called ‘the Hubble constant’, not ‘the Hubble parameter’.
anna v says:
August 25, 2010 at 4:43 am
“OK, here is a bit more of why it cannot be neutrinos.”
It cannot be ordinary neutrinos unless the theory of how they interact or the theory of beta decay is wrong or in some crucial aspect incomplete. However, it would be arrogant to claim that the theory cannot be wrong, without first putting it to experimental test. That means subjecting radionuclides to neutrino beams and checking that there is no stimulated decay beyond that to be expected under the theory. If the beam is bright enough (I don’t know what current technology can manage) one might also be able to confirm the theoretical prediction for the stimulated decay. Very roughly, this would seem to require putting ~1E12 neutrinos through a nuclide over its half life (that is, a rate ~1E12/T1/2) – reduced by the accuracy with which the decay rate can be measured (say ~1/1000). For Ra-228 (T1/2~6.7yr), assuming an effective nuclear radius ~15fm and atomic radius ~220pm, that would imply a brightness or beam density ~1E12/2E8/1000*2E8~1E9 neutrinos/m2/s. So far as I am aware, this has not yet been done, although induced decays have of course already been investigated (and are regularly employed in neutrino detectors).
While we are here: I do propose that Patchy Moral’s romance novel was the first ever Quantum Book owing to it’s short shelf life!
johnnythelowery says:
August 25, 2010 at 6:50 am
Looking forward to Leif showing up.
With due respect to my old friend, Peter Sturrock, I do not believe there is any substance to this story. I’m keeping an open mind about it [in contrast to many other claims where my mind is less open], but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that does not seem to be there at this time. Sadly, many of the comments here show the dismal level of scientific literacy found among the populace today, in conjunction with the extraordinary post-modernism that seems to have gripped people.
tallbloke says:
August 25, 2010 at 7:18 am
Paul Birch says: “First, the Hubble “constant” is not a fundamental physical constant; it’s a cosmological parameter with -dH/dt/H~10E-10/yr. It is well known to change over time.”
“Not by the amount it has been changed by the shifting goalposts of the BB theory though. And if it’s a ‘parameter’ these days, it used to be a ‘constant’. That’s why it was called ‘the Hubble constant’, not ‘the Hubble parameter’.”
It was never considered to be fundamental physical constant; it was always understood to depend on the age of the universe (for any non-steady-state cosmological model). It was historically called a constant because that’s how it showed up in the empirical plot of galactic redshift versus distance.
You still haven’t grasped the distinction between changing an estimate and estimating a change. Suppose you estimate the height of a building by pacing out from it base and holding up a thumb at arm’s length. Your estimate is not going to be very accurate. If you return with a laser theodolite you will then get a much better estimate; but you wouldn’t claim that the height of the building had actually changed between your two observations. Indeed, even without sophisticated equipment, and even without ever calculating how tall the building was, you could easily prove that the building had not changed in height over the past sixty years, by noting that a photograph taken from the same spot showed the building’s outline unchanged against the mountains in the background.
Considering the isotopes are reacting prior to the sun’s flaring, wouldn’t it be more plausible to suggest that this “unknown force” isn’t emanating from the sun, but rather moving the other direction?
Seems possible to me that anything which could influence radioactive decay rates would play merry hell with solar reactions too… and if you look at it as something extrasolar that passed through Earth and then the Sun, at least we don’t have to toss causality out the window.
Reading the website (google search is so easy), you see such a long list of possible, fairly mundane possibilities, it is both amazing and interesting to see that we latch on to the most exotic, i.e. a radical alteration of the basic laws of physics. We humans love drama in our lives. We’re all Paris Hilton Wannabes.
Paul Birch says:
August 25, 2010 at 7:56 am
You still haven’t grasped the distinction between changing an estimate and estimating a change.
I don’t think [I could be wrong] that this is the real issue. It seems that the issue is one of agenda [post-modernism http://www.leif.org/EOS/2010EO330003.pdf ]. If you push pseudo-science then it is convenient to label real science as pseudo-science as well, so that there is no difference in outlook and anything goes.
Leif: You know Paul Sturrock and his name hasn’t certified it for you, so,…..us neither then. Nor did it as someone commented. I think it’s been since 2006 that they’ve had this data. But, he’s a solar expert and the whackyness didn’t pass over his head. He’s well aware of the implications of this. So, lets just say that the observation is correct, what do you think? and What are the implications especially for the TSI contended issue? And who is working on this issue do you know?
son of mulder,
Be careful about your assumptions of causality. Polarized light pulse arrives at the end of the optic fiber before it has been generated. This fact is repeatedly confirmed by several independent laboratories.
What do we know about causality in a quantum world? Curvature of time is the simplest explanation for a few seemingly inexplicable experimental paradoxes observed in recent years.
johnnythelowery says:
August 25, 2010 at 8:55 am
Peter Sturrock
So, lets just say that the observation is correct, what do you think? and What are the implications especially for the TSI contended issue? And who is working on this issue do you know?
The effect is so small that it is hard to state that the data is ‘correct’. I don’t think the effect has been established to the point that many are working on it. This is [at the moment] fringe-stuff. If true, it would very exciting, but would not ‘overturn’ science as we know it, because, again, the ‘effect’ is very small.
Alexander: You math is correct but your physics is abominable! How do you explain this phenomenon you mention?
‘……Polarized light pulse arrives at the end of the optic fiber before it has been generated. This fact is repeatedly confirmed by several independent laboratories…..’
Thx.
Leif: Interesting answer. Are you seeing this(given it’s not complete rubbish) as a quantum…spooky…etc. effect as hinted at in title ‘telleconnect’ or as neutrino/particle physical collision effect? And, what about that proposal of dark matter keeping the sun interior cooler proposed by someone (whom I’m sure you know) which explains why the corona is hotter?
Leif Svalgaard says:
August 25, 2010 at 7:53 am
“Sadly, many of the comments here show the dismal level of scientific literacy found among the populace today, in conjunction with the extraordinary post-modernism that seems to have gripped people.”
Can you please give some examples of the poor science and post-modernism you have in mind?
I have found this post and comments on it well informed and stimulating. Many of the commentators are well respected WUWT regulars.
We have, possibly, a new phenomenon prompting some new thinking. For example, I was directed to this which I thnk is brilliant.
http://www.physorg.com/news199591806.html
Maybe you are not interested in new theories about the sun and the universe in case yours are proved wrong. That would be poor science.