"what we're suggesting is that something that doesn't really interact with anything is changing something that can't be changed."
- From: bodhi <psychedelictourist@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2010 20:23:27 -0800 (PST)
crikey!!!
With a violent solar storm hitting us in 2012 and a massive hole in
the magnetosphere to greet it -
Nasa Warns Of Super Solar Storm 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TzIUlaQok
..... and now THIS piece of insane news from Stanford University -
The strange case of solar flares and radioactive elements
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2010/august/sun-082310.html
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.
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.
--------------
namaste;
bodhi
.
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