Re: Radioactive Decay Rates depend on Earth-Sun Distance

On Mon, 8 Sep 2008 11:15:30 -0400, Puppet_Sock wrote
(in article
<d2a8cf53-897e-48c1-aedc-e6e60b4e36bc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>):

On Sep 7, 5:27 pm, Cygnus X-1 <cygnu...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
While both labs are in the northern hemisphere, so the outside
temperature may be equivalent, is it reasonable to assume the
temperature *inside* the laboratories would show an equivalent
variation?  

Sure. Though maybe negatively. AC in the summer, heat
in the winter.

I'm still on the fence as to if this is purely an instrumental effect
(did both labs use the same make and model of counter?) or whether
something exterior to the meaurment apparatus adjusting the count rate.
 This might be like the somewhat counter-intuitive observation that
increased solar activity reduces the amount of galactic cosmic rays
that reach the Earth (Forbush effect).

It's not (directly) solar activity, but solar magnetic field.

The nice thing about this claim is it should be relatively easy to
test! :^)

Well... for suitable values of "easy" I suppose. The reported effect
is a variation of 1 or 2 in the fourth significant digit of the decay
rates. To perform an experiment accurate to that degree, and
free of systematic bias, is not a trivial thing.

For example, many detectors are known to track barometric
pressure. Are there more low pressure days in the winter or
the summer? I don't keep track of that sort of thing. But you
would need to address it to properly check this report.

Measuring a decay rate to better than 4 significant digits
(you'd need to have the 5th digit no worse than +/- a few
to see this signal clearly if it is real) isn't a trivial task.
Socks


Which I guess raises the question of how they got such a small
error-bar in the first place!

Tom
--
Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy
http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1
cygnusx1@xxxxxxx
"They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated.
Only knowledge is dangerous." --Frank Herbert, "Dune Messiah"

.

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