Scientists worried: Strange emissions by sun are suddenly mutating matter

reply to post by iterationzero


But that isn't what the Standford article is saying.

Average drift can change, and we have been measuring these decay rates for a very tiny slice of time.

Known historically dated materials isn't as exact as you seem to think.

And our measurements of distant objects in space are not as accurate as is often advertised.

I have been thinking about this for awhile, and was wondering something...

Is it possible that neutrinos share a Wave-Particle duality like light, and could it be the wave that is actually having the effect?

Kev

Originally posted by kevkeegsdad
I have been thinking about this for awhile, and was wondering something...

Is it possible that neutrinos share a Wave-Particle duality like light, and could it be the wave that is actually having the effect?

Kev

In my uneducated, fear mongering, unresearched, unspecialised & unknowing opinion - an inequitable YES

Originally posted by kevkeegsdad
I have been thinking about this for awhile, and was wondering something...

Is it possible that neutrinos share a Wave-Particle duality like light, and could it be the wave that is actually having the effect?

Kev

with the ability to exist in a form larger than (and in a way as such to render the mass of earth irrelevant to it's existance in and on) planet earth, the properties of neutrino's probably play a key part in understanding the fabric of the universe.

Originally posted by poet1b
But that isn't what the Standford article is saying.

Which point specifically?

Average drift can change, and we have been measuring these decay rates for a very tiny slice of time.

Known historically dated materials isn't as exact as you seem to think.

And our measurements of distant objects in space are not as accurate as is often advertised.

I apologize for doing this, but I didn't want to delay a reply and I'm wearing a baby on the front of me right now. This is a post of mine from the thread over in O&C that covered the same article. It should address the points you raise:

Again, you’re reading more significance into the results of the research than any of the researchers did – no where is it claimed in the original work that the long term decay rates weren’t constant, just that the decay rates shift slightly over a 33 day cycle. In fact, one of the researchers explicitly stated that this would have no significant impact on archaeological data.

I can absolutely use the argument that decay rates are constant over a timeframe significantly longer than 33 days because it’s not an assumption or speculation, it’s supported by the evidence. Decay rates haven’t been observed to change within the limits of experimental accuracy since we’ve started measuring them. (Citation) Granted, this has been for a relatively short time. If we look at gamma ray frequencies and fading rates from multiple supernovae that we’ve observed at distances ranging from the hundreds of thousands of light-years to billions of light-years, they are accurately predicted by our current terrestrial decay rates. (Citation 1, Citation 2, Citation 3) You can accurately predict half-lives from quantum mechanics, where any variation would have to arise through changes in fundamental constants. Interestingly, according to those calculations, a change in a fundamental constant would change the decay rates for different radioisotopes disproportionally relative to each other. Yet different radiometric methods give consistent dates. But we also know that the fundamental constants that regulate these mechanisms haven’t changed more than 0.000005% in the last two billion years. (Citation 1, Citation 2)

reply to post by iterationzero


All three of your points are in disagreement with the Standford article.

All of your citations are very old, and what we are talking about are discoveries of new evidence that suggests these older theories may be wrong. Infrared shift may very well be nothing but ambient noise of nearby space, and might not indicate universal expansion at all.

This clearly is addressed in the Standford article.

Originally posted by poet1b
All three of your points are in disagreement with the Standford article.

I've read the Stanford article, as well as articles from other sources based on the same research with comments from the other researchers involved in the work, and I don't think my points disagree with their research at all.

Regarding my first point, the 33-day cycle, from the Stanford article:

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.

A "recurring pattern" in decay rates suggests that there is no detectable net acceleration or deceleration in decay rate over that 33 day period. If there was, there wouldn't be a recurring pattern. That covers the first point. My second point was regarding the calibration curves for radiocarbon dating, which aren't even mentioned in the Stanford article. Even if there are small seasonal variations in the decay rate of C14, the calibration curves used for dating would incorporate any fluctuation. My third point was that there are methods to measure radioisotope decay rates in nonterrestrial environments over periods that cover billions of years, another point not addressed in the Stanford article. These measurements agree with current terrestrial decay rates. So I'm not sure how you can say all three of my points are in conflict with the Stanford article.

Further, if you go back and read the original Purdue article, upon which the Stanford article is based, you'd see the following quote:

"The fluctuations we're seeing are fractions of a percent and are not likely to radically alter any major anthropological findings," Fischbach said.

All of your citations are very old, and what we are talking about are discoveries of new evidence that suggests these older theories may be wrong.

Granted, the citations aren't from 2010, but they also involve research that the Stanford article doesn't address and their findings have yet to be overturned. It doesn't matter how old the research is if it's still valid. I'm not saying that this isn't an important finding, just that it doesn't overturn the current model for radioisotope dating yet.

Stepping aside for a moment from any question about the veracity of the science referenced in the article, I'd like to take a moment to examine the language used in the article itself. A bit of "reading between the lines" if you will.

Just take a look at some snippets quoted directly from the source article:

Terrifying scientific discovery; strange emissions; mutating matter; mounting fear; researchers wring hands; devastating tsunamis; wipe away our technology; dire warnings; violent explosions; alarmed physicists; frantic scientists; startling potential; dramatically change; scientists on edge; culprits behind the mutation of matter; unknown dangers; dangerous intensity; strange uncontrollable forces; emails fly; hands wring; worst impact imaginable; nothing can be done; titanic forces; overwhelm technology; playthings of gods; utterly helpless.

I'm not suggesting that the science in question is suspect, but the intentions of this article's author most certainly are. I definitely would not have used this material as a source link if I had any intention of people taking my post seriously....or perhaps the over the top fear mongering had some appeal to you?

Originally posted by prof7

Originally posted by kwakakev
On the positive side it sounds like all the radiation in Japan and elsewhere will get cleaned up a bit quicker. It is so good for the Sun to look after Earth like that as well all mess it up, I am really impressed

It will not speed up anything now. The effect is not something that only recently ("suddenly") started happening, it has probably been happening since Aeons already (in a 1 year cycle if I read it correctly), we only recently discovered it. "New" previously unknown things are discovered every day but this does not mean that they did not exist before the moment they were discovered.

The word "suddenly" is definitely wrong.

edit on 20-4-2011 by prof7 because: (no reason given)

Aye, it is like when people go all doomsday after a natural disaster happened in some place they where barely aware of. Technology is just getting to the point were we are able to know more and more about what is going on around us.

reply to post by Farnhold


Lets say its true....

Does it really matter?

I shall finish the game.

I keep seeing alot of speculation about neutrinos?

But -

“Scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology and Purdue University have ruled out neutrino flux as a cause of previously observed fluctuations in nuclear decay rates. From the article: ‘Researchers … 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.’ The paper can be found here on arXiv. Slashdot has previously covered the original announcement and followed up with the skepticism of other scientists.”

science.slashdot.org...

Ok, why now? You would think there would be a major reason for these sudden catastrophic changes in the Sun. I would REALLY like to know!

Originally posted by Pressthebutton
Ok, why now? You would think there would be a major reason for these sudden catastrophic changes in the Sun. I would REALLY like to know!

Why do you assume that it's "sudden" or "catastrophic"? Assuming that the findings are confirmed, it's more likely that this is an ongoing phenomenon that has been occurring since the birth of the solar system.

Originally posted by SystemiK
Stepping aside for a moment from any question about the veracity of the science referenced in the article, I'd like to take a moment to examine the language used in the article itself. A bit of "reading between the lines" if you will.

Just take a look at some snippets quoted directly from the source article:

Terrifying scientific discovery; strange emissions; mutating matter; mounting fear; researchers wring hands; devastating tsunamis; wipe away our technology; dire warnings; violent explosions; alarmed physicists; frantic scientists; startling potential; dramatically change; scientists on edge; culprits behind the mutation of matter; unknown dangers; dangerous intensity; strange uncontrollable forces; emails fly; hands wring; worst impact imaginable; nothing can be done; titanic forces; overwhelm technology; playthings of gods; utterly helpless.

I'm not suggesting that the science in question is suspect, but the intentions of this article's author most certainly are. I definitely would not have used this material as a source link if I had any intention of people taking my post seriously....or perhaps the over the top fear mongering had some appeal to you?

First of all the actual article ... even though yes.. it does contain all of the above statements.. it is much more palatable then the above post would seem to indicate. Having said that we must remember that the commodity that must be exhausted ....is that of fear. And if there are things yet able to create fear within us..they must be faced and we must find within ourselves that which will prevail in the face of it.

One thing that I came away from the article with is the fact that the particles that make up the material reality of our world are under the direct influence of our sun...It reveals a mechanism in place that we were heretofore unaware of. A mechanism with the potential to bring about dramatic change within our reality. The following is a quote from the Project world awareness article.


"Now this new force may be directly interacting with matter in a way that could not only change Mankind’s understanding of physics, but change Mankind itself…and not necessarily in a beneficial way."


I would like to point out that if the last part of the above statement is true....the inverse of it is true as well. This is where my hope lies....not because of this article but because of my own inner voice...my own inner childlike desire to have something bigger then myself, something stronger then myself....something more capable then myself.... to handle all of the insurmountable problems that have flooded into my reality. To have that something make itself manifest to me.( sorry for getting all vulnerable and stuff...I just had a moment of humanity come over me).

If anyone saw the 'B rated SciFi flick' Solar Flare from 2008, the interesting thing was that they were observing molecular change in matter in a super deep pit in India due to increasing solar radiation occurring in a strange manner.

The premise of that part of the movie was interesting and somewhat 'on par' with the post but the 'Hollywoodization' detracted greatly from that premise.

reply to post by iterationzero


Good reply, but I have to continue to disagree. It wouldn't be any fun if I didn't now would it.

Just because the variability of the rate of change appears to be relatively stable, with an average that from current measurements seems to be consistent, it is still a variable, and therefore not a constant. Which is exactly what the the Standford article states.

From my previous post on the same page as your initial post which I responded to.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

news.stanford.edu...

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.)

The Standford Professor is clearly stating that this evidence challenges the belief that the decay rate of radioactive material is constant. This contradicts your claims that as long as the average is statistically constant, there is no effect.

The big reason that this throws doubt into the belief that the radioactive decay is constant, is because they have not been observing this for nearly a long enough time to determine that it is constant, now that they know it does vary on a schedule, beyond what once could call a constant, that roughly corresponds to the rotation of the core of the sun.. The evidence that the Earth's distance from the sun, and solar activity also seem to influence the decay rate gives rise to the notion that the decay rate may vary significantly over time.

A "recurring pattern" in decay rates suggests that there is no detectable net acceleration or deceleration in decay rate over that 33 day period.

Acceleration really has nothing to do with it. The possibility of drift is the big factor.

How are you going to insert calibration offset values for the variability of the decay rate of a thousand years ago unless you have some sort of method of determining what that drift factor was a thousand years ago. At his point in time, they have only a few weak ideas about what may be causing the drift.

I also highly question the ability of scientist to measure the radioactive decay that cover billions of years. One of the problems of modern science is the willingness of some to greatly overstate capabilities

I would agree with Professor Fischbach, that these findings "are not likely to radically alter any major anthropological findings"

The key points being "not likely" and "radically", which means possibly will alter, but not a great deal, but there is a slight possibility that it could radically alter major anthropological findings.

This does disagree with the quote you posted that "One of the researchers explicitly stated that this would have no significant impact on archaeological data".

Personally what I find most intriguing is the evidence that the sun effect radioactive decay rates here on Earth. It seems to be another nail in the coffin of quantum mechanics, and more evidence that we shouldn't have completely abandoned the ether theory. Personally I think modern science has the concept of the electron, proton, and neutron completely wrong.

If you imagine an electron as a proportionally hair like particle of varying length, the proton as shorter, much thicker, and with a great deal more elasticity, and the neutron as a gummy type of particle, then it explains how they physically fit together and tangle to create the fabric of matter as we know it, without some invisible, unexplainable force. Neutrinos would be electrons too short to tangle in order to create the fabric of matter, but they could get caught in the atomic structure of an atom, and possibly cause the decay.

reply to post by coquine


I would think that claims that scientist reasoning about the effect of neutrinos in Gold-198, hardly stands as "ruling out the possibility" of neutrinos being a possible cause, being that the neutrinos streaming from the sun could very well be significantly different in numerous ways than the neutrinos released in the Gold-198.

Sounds like quite the overstatement, and you are quoting another blog, which means essentially nothing.

Originally posted by poet1b
Just because the variability of the rate of change appears to be relatively stable, with an average that from current measurements seems to be consistent, it is still a variable, and therefore not a constant. Which is exactly what the the Standford article states.

I don't think I stated anything that contradicts this - there's no question that their research shows the decay rate varies.

The Standford Professor is clearly stating that this evidence challenges the belief that the decay rate of radioactive material is constant. This contradicts your claims that as long as the average is statistically constant, there is no effect.

Not "no effect", I said "no net effect". There's a difference between the two.

The big reason that this throws doubt into the belief that the radioactive decay is constant, is because they have not been observing this for nearly a long enough time to determine that it is constant, now that they know it does vary on a schedule, beyond what once could call a constant, that roughly corresponds to the rotation of the core of the sun.. The evidence that the Earth's distance from the sun, and solar activity also seem to influence the decay rate gives rise to the notion that the decay rate may vary significantly over time.

First, if you go back to the articles I cited regarding measurements of the gamma emissions from supernova radioisotope decay, they agree with our current decay rate measurements. If you assume that the decay rates here on Earth have deviated "significantly", then what you're asserting is that all of the supernovae we've observed to date, ranging over distances (and therefore times) of 10kya to several Gya, just happen to match up with what's happening here right now. It would also stand to reason that this would be occurring anywhere that there are radioisotopes and a nearby star, so you'd actually be asserting that all of these random processes that occurred over a span of a few billion years just happened to produce gamma emissions that line up perfectly with not only our terrestrrial decay rates, but also each other, right now.

Acceleration really has nothing to do with it. The possibility of drift is the big factor.

You're talking about a drift in decay rate. Change in rate is the same thing as acceleration/deceleration.

How are you going to insert calibration offset values for the variability of the decay rate of a thousand years ago unless you have some sort of method of determining what that drift factor was a thousand years ago. At his point in time, they have only a few weak ideas about what may be causing the drift.

The calibration curves for C14 are based on samples of known age verified by non-radiometric methods.

I also highly question the ability of scientist to measure the radioactive decay that cover billions of years. One of the problems of modern science is the willingness of some to greatly overstate capabilities

Measurements aren't the only way that decay rates are determined. One can actually calculate decay rates from first principles without ever making a measurement. And they agree with our currently measured decay rates down to an absurd level.

Personally what I find most intriguing is the evidence that the sun effect radioactive decay rates here on Earth. It seems to be another nail in the coffin of quantum mechanics, and more evidence that we shouldn't have completely abandoned the ether theory. Personally I think modern science has the concept of the electron, proton, and neutron completely wrong.

If you imagine an electron as a proportionally hair like particle of varying length, the proton as shorter, much thicker, and with a great deal more elasticity, and the neutron as a gummy type of particle, then it explains how they physically fit together and tangle to create the fabric of matter as we know it, without some invisible, unexplainable force. Neutrinos would be electrons too short to tangle in order to create the fabric of matter, but they could get caught in the atomic structure of an atom, and possibly cause the decay.

Sounds like string theory. *wink wink*

reply to post by Farnhold


Matter doesn't mutate.

reply to post by iterationzero


You are saying that the net change means that this doesn't make the whole dating process questionable, when the Standford article clearly states that it does, because the overall variability is to large to not question whether or not this can be considered a constant.

The articles you cited about supernova radioisotope decay are about identifying different species of radioactive materials in deep space. Radioisotope decay of carbon 14 for dating is a different process. This requires looking at specific materials, and measuring the decay. This is not what they are doing when looking at species of radioactive materials in deep space. They have to have the samples of known carbon 14 to establish the decay rates, they don't have those samples from deep space. They can only measure the combination of frequencies of gamma rays to identify categories of these emissions.

Calculations are based on previously measured values.

Acceleration is the speed of the rate of change, not the total change. If you are in a car 60 mph, and accelerate at 5 mph per minute for five minutes, and then drop to 0 mph per minute acceleration, you will then be moving at 85 mph, having change the rate of travel from 60 to 85, or 25 mph. It is the change in rate, not the speed of the change of rate that is important here. Maybe I am being nitpicky.

Actually, it is different than string theory, quite a bit different. Thanks for the comment on my amateur physics theory.