Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Scientific research which YECs and the mainstream can do for the benefit of society

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YECs are very interested in mechanism of accelerated nuclear decay. Ironically, so is the mainstream in order to find better methods of dealing with nuclear waste instead of burying it underground (or worse putting it in containers and tossing it in the sea). Here is a breaking development published in a peer-reviewed article in 2013:

Accelerated alpha-decay of uranium isotopes induced by exposure of aqueous solution of uranium salt with gold nanoparticles to laser radiation

a pre-print of the work is available here:

Accelerated alpha-decay of 232U isotope achieved by exposure of its aqueous solution with gold nanoparticles to laser radiation

One notable highlight was that nuclear decay was accelerated by a factor of 6-trillion!

In other words, the half-life of 232U in the laser field is 5 μ s instead of 69 years.

This was hypothesized even in the 90’s

It is shown that, using laser irradiation, it is feasible to accelerate nuclear transitions in U-235m by several orders of magnitude. A novel internal resonance conversion mechanism is proposed, which involves the excitation of an electron to a discrete level. The differences in resonance between the electron and the nuclear transitions can be compensated by a suitable choice of the laser-radiation frequency.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1990ZhETF..97..401Z

Laser energy is electromagnetic in nature, but even pure bursts of electrical energy such as lightning can accelerate nuclear decay. That was a topic of a term paper I prepared for my physics professor and a class presentation. That paper began my exploration into these matters. I thought my physics professor was going to take my head off for such a radical proposal, but to my surprise, there is mainstream theoretical and empirical support for such ideas. I summarized my term paper here:

Vodka! Can nuclear structure be affected by chemical, biological, mechanical and biological means?

If the YECs can make young rocks look old through electrical experiments, they might further their case. But even if they fail in this but find means of accelerating the decay of radioactive waste, they could make a meaningful contribution to society in doing such research. Given that such research could help alleviate nuclear waste, even the Darwinists might want to say, “God speed to you YECs in this matter.”

NOTES
1. Relevance of YEC to ID
2. HT: Walter Brown

Comments
"I love heretical ideas in science." I do too. You try them out and invariably learn something new. It's fun. Occasionally, they turn out to be true! Apparently, this freedom and delight profoundly annoys those people who see Science as a uniform march of an imaginary consensus of eminent scientists who advance steadily and irresistibly from triumph to triumph to Ultimate Knowledge. To some, The Consensus is god, and proper reverence to the recognized guardian priests of Science is both essential and mandatory. Heretical ideas must be punished as always: by flaming the heretic! LOL!Querius
August 29, 2013
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Yes old rocks don't look old but just beaten up. YEC does demand mechanisms to bring fast results. I never thought of this decay idea about waster but perhaps some creationist researchers out there would have a advantage in presumptions here. Actually science should be about being wary of presumptions in anything about nature but the loyalty to evolutionism and fear of the modern creationist movement has chilled the mood of criticalness. It seems that way to me.Robert Byers
August 25, 2013
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One notable highlight was that nuclear decay was accelerated by a factor of 6-trillion!
Facsinating...and certainly shows why we shouldn't just assume the ages given for certain fossils are accurate.Blue_Savannah
August 24, 2013
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