Do nuclear decay rates depend on our distance from the sun?

the physics arXiv blog ^ | 8/29/08

[pabianice]

Paging Colonel Samantha Carter. Will Colonel Carter please pick-up the white courtesy phone...

[dangerdoc]

Cooking off a few percent of fissionables in a foreign warhead while it sits in a silo would much more discrete that sending our arsenel over the north pole.

Not saying it could happen, it’s just the first thing than crossed my mind.

[dangerdoc]

Cooking off a few percent of fissionables in a foreign warhead while it sits in a silo would much more discrete that sending our arsenel over the north pole.

Not saying it could happen, it’s just the first thing than crossed my mind.

[rmlew]

It’sa good thing she is back in our galaxy!

[Pontiac]

Nuclear Ping

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

Interesting. This could have some GUTsy implications.

[Pontiac]

Does this mean that all of the Atomic Clocks are out of calibration?

[steve86]

Someone else pointed out the phenomenon seems to have to do with rate of change in distance — not distance in itself.

[r9etb]

Someone else pointed out the phenomenon seems to have to do with rate of change in distance — not distance in itself.

Interesting.... and still (potentially) measurable from spacecraft measurements.

And if what they say is true, I wonder if it might help to explain the anomalous acceleration perturbations acting on those distant spacecraft.

[Kevmo]

John Barrow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Douglas Shaw at the University of London, suggests that the sun produces a field that changes the value of the fine structure constant on Earth as its distance from the sun varies during each orbit.
***Basically, now we’re starting to see physicists wrestle with the finding that the Speed of Light is not a constant. The Fine Structure Constant has changed...

Google search for “fine structure constant” on free republic:

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Expanding Uncertainty about the Hubble ConstantThe pure number we call the fine structure constant and denote by á is a combination of the electron charge, e, the speed of light, c, and Planck’s constant ...
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[steve86]

I wonder if it might help to explain the anomalous acceleration perturbations acting on those distant spacecraft.

Yeah, those naggy things.

Other people wondering if the solar distance is a red herring and the important factor is really orientation to the galactic core. But the sun has far more gravitational influence on earth, of course. The idea is that the sun would be shielding something from the galactic core when the sun is between the earth and the core.

[Kevmo]

Hopefully the links will be restored:

Sacred constant might be changing
Speaking at the Institute of Physics conference Physics 2005, Dr Michael Murphy of Cambridge University will discuss the “fine structure constant” - one of ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1382010/posts - 24k - Cached - Similar pages

Expanding Uncertainty about the Hubble Constant
The pure number we call the fine structure constant and denote by á is a combination of the electron charge, e, the speed of light, c, and Planck’s constant ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1782857/posts - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

Graphene Gazing Gives Glimpse Of Foundations Of Universe
Among them, the fine structure constant is arguably most mysterious. ... Graphene sounds interesting, sort of, but the fine structure constant, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1997182/posts - 23k - Cached - Similar pages

First Quantum Teleportation between Light and Matter
Oct 4, 2006 ... Electromagnetic fine structure constant Gravitational fine-structure constant Decay rate of protons Ground state energy level for helium-4 ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1714615/posts - 32k - Cached - Similar pages

Speed of light may have changed recently
The threat to the idea of an invariable speed of light comes from measurements of another parameter called the fine structure constant, or alpha, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1163251/posts - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Scientists: Nature’s Fundamental Laws May Be Changing
In 2004, a group of astronomers - including Petitjean - found no change in the fine structure constant using quasar spectra from the Very Large Telescope in ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2060962/posts - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

The 2004 Nobel Prize in PhysicsOne of the reasons why it is so successful is that the equation contains a small constant, the so-called fine structure constant or coupling constant, aem, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1235560/posts - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Open Letter to the Scientific CommunityThe details of such spectral shifts are expressed mathematically by the so-called fine-structure constant, which consists of four components, including the ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1372828/posts - 47k - Cached - Similar pages

Intelligent Design and The Inner Life of the Cell...
the fine structure constant, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and all the others, about 30 in all, how do you account for their settings? ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1750426/posts - 56k - Cached - Similar pages

Computer Sleuths Try To Crack Pioneer Anomaly
Would an adjustment to the fine structure constant account for a slight .... At these masses and velocities, the fine structure constant is just that. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794297/posts - 43k - Cached - Similar pages

Inconstant Speed of Light May Debunk Einstein
What relation exists between possible changes in the fine structure constant and the many various creation stories handed down to us from ancient times? ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/729815/posts - 59k - Cached - Similar pages

Hundreds gather for evolution-’intelligent design’ discussionThere is one anomalous and unconfirmed observation relating to the electromagnetic fine structure constant in the early universe that could in principle be ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/645637/posts - 60k - Cached - Similar pages

Einstein’s relativity theory hits a speed bump
When they measured the fine structure constant of this 12 billion-year-old light, Webb and Murphy found it was slightly smaller than it would be today. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/730930/posts - 71k - Cached - Similar pages

How Unique Is Our Cosmic Patch? [Cosmology, Anthropic Principle]
A couple of years ago, there was a story about a cosmological measurement that indicated a change in the electromagnetic fine structure constant (alpha) by ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1314456/posts - 67k - Cached - Similar pages

Black hole theory suggests light is slowing (down)!
The physicists’ suggestion follows earlier measurements of a key quantity called the “fine structure constant”. This quantity dictates how photons of light ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/755701/posts - 57k - Cached - Similar pages

13 things that do not make senseIf the observations are correct, the only vaguely reasonable explanation is that a constant of physics called the fine structure constant, or alpha, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1364833/posts?page=137 - 79k - Cached - Similar pages

Replies
There is evidence to suggest that the fine-structure constant, [alpha] - a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic interaction between photons and ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/729323/replies?c=28 - 6k - Cached - Similar pages

Keyword: speedoflight
The fine structure constant, one of a handful of pure numbers that occupy a central role in physics,... Oldest Remains of Modern Humans Are Identified by ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/speedoflight/index - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Primordial Nukes (Prehistoric Nukes Found)...
researchers recognized that it might provide data that could help them learn about the number called alpha, also known as the fine-structure constant, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1362835/posts - 35k - Cached - Similar pages

Keyword: redshift
The fine structure constant, one of a handful of pure numbers that occupy a central role in physics,... Astronomical surprise: Massive old galaxies starve ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/redshift/index - 32k - Cached - Similar pages

Have Particle Masses Changed since the Early Universe?
For example, the steadiness of the fine structure constant (denoted by the letter alpha), defined as the square of the electron’s charge divided by the ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1618293/posts?page=55 - 15k - Cached - Similar pages

Why is There Life? [Free Republic]It must be a British thing. Eddington thought that the fine structure constant was 1/137 exactly and derived the rest of the universe from this. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39f0b3a3389a.htm - 122k - Cached - Similar pages

Keyword: graphene... the world’s thinnest material absorbs a well-defined fraction of visible light, which allows the direct determination of the fine structure constant. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/graphene/index - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Priest-Cosmologist Wins $1.6 Million Templeton Prize... life - that the laws of physics are precisely tuned so that life will appear in this universe, e.g. the speed of light and the fine structure constant. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1985523/posts?page=96 - 77k - Cached - Similar pages

Posts by Kevin OMalley
But now even that postulation is demonstrably untrue if we know that the fine structure constant has changed, so we are now in a position of trying to ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:kevinomalley/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change - 140k - Cached - Similar pages

Team Maps Dark Matter in Startling DetailI find it much easier to believe the fine structure constant and light velocity have changed over the history of the universe. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1537896/posts - 50k - Cached - Similar pages

Did physists just mathematicall prove the existence of God?Similarly, a number known as the fine structure constant characterizes the strength of electromagnetic forces. If it were a little larger, astronomers say, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/778662/posts - 71k - Cached - Similar pages

String Theory, With No Holds Barred [Brian Greene and Lawrence ...If Greene, Witten, et al could just derive the fine-structure constant or the quark and lepton mass ratios from string theory using pure mathematics, ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1810012/posts - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Newton Vs. The Clockwork Universe
A concrete proof of this is the measurement of the distance (or energy) dependence of the fine-structure “constant”. This is explained by vacuum ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1174268/posts - 84k - Cached - Similar pages

DimensioGalaxy observations show no change in fundamental fine structure constant. Unchanged for 7 billion years. The Age of the Universe and SN1987A. ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/~dimensio/ - 89k - Cached - Similar pages

Posts by rhetor01/05/2005 4:49:30 AM PST · 24 of 27 · rhetor to AntiGuv. There are, it turns out, lots of ways of doing that — most of which require inventing/adding new ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/by:rhetor/index?tab=comments;brevity=full;options=no-change - 284k - Cached - Similar pages

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo! [singing] Kevmo! Kevmo! (Kevmo! Kevmo!) well a nyuk nyuk nyuk nyuk!

This is a pretty cool article. I'm definitely going to spend some time on this tonight.

[SunkenCiv]

We think that the decay rates of elements are constant regardless of the ambient conditions (except in a few special cases where beta decay can be influenced by powerful electric fields). So that makes it hard to explain the curious periodic variations in the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 observed by groups at the Brookhaven National Labs in the US and at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesandstalt in Germany in the 1980s... Jere Jenkins and pals at Purdue University in Indiana have re-analysed the raw data from these experiments and say that the modulations are synchronised with each other and with Earth's distance from the sun. (Both groups, in acts of selfless dedication, measured the decay rates of siliocn-32 and radium-226 over a period of many years.) In other words, there appears to be an annual variation in the decay rates of these elements... John Barrow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Douglas Shaw at the University of London, suggests that the sun produces a field that changes the value of the fine structure constant on Earth as its distance from the sun varies during each orbit... Another idea is that the effect is caused by some kind of interaction with the neutrino flux from the sun's interior, which could be tested by carrying out the measurements close to a nuclear reactor (which would generate its own powerful neutrino flux)... In 2006, Jenkins says the decay rate of manganese-54 in their lab decreased dramtically during a solar flare on 13 December.

Thanks Kevmo!

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[Kevmo]

Is that anything like the Curly Shuffle?

Video from 1980’s showing Curly in various interactions with Moe & Larry:
“Do the Curly Shuffle, nyuk nyuk nyuk “

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Kevmo!

[SunkenCiv]

That’s it exactly. :’) Glad my singing voice didn’t mess it up. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

We think that the decay rates of elements are constant regardless of the ambient conditions (except in a few special cases where beta decay can be influenced by powerful electric fields). So that makes it hard to explain the curious periodic variations in the decay rates of silicon-32 and radium-226 observed by groups at the Brookhaven National Labs in the US and at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesandstalt in Germany in the 1980s... Jere Jenkins and pals at Purdue University in Indiana have re-analysed the raw data from these experiments and say that the modulations are synchronised with each other and with Earth's distance from the sun. (Both groups, in acts of selfless dedication, measured the decay rates of siliocn-32 and radium-226 over a period of many years.) In other words, there appears to be an annual variation in the decay rates of these elements... John Barrow at the University of Cambridge in the UK and Douglas Shaw at the University of London, suggests that the sun produces a field that changes the value of the fine structure constant on Earth as its distance from the sun varies during each orbit... Another idea is that the effect is caused by some kind of interaction with the neutrino flux from the sun's interior, which could be tested by carrying out the measurements close to a nuclear reactor (which would generate its own powerful neutrino flux)... In 2006, Jenkins says the decay rate of manganese-54 in their lab decreased dramtically during a solar flare on 13 December.

Thanks Kevmo!

· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic ·

[SunkenCiv]

Okay, wow, sorry. I checked the topic once to make sure it wasn’t there (I never got a result screen back, and so thought I’d not clicked the “post” button, uh, hard enough). And it wasn’t. Now I see I’ve pinged everyone twice, and you have my abject apologies.