Uranium Halos--decay constants...constant

[dad]

No, you are purposely hanging back so that you can use how these radiation halos are and try to warp the information to match up with your beliefs.

While it is true that the way they work will be skewed by beliefs of science, it is incumbent upon people holding up a scientific claim to show some basis.

It is inconceivable that the evidence would not be viewed by anyone on earth with a bias. Since no one dared to support the outlandish claims made in the name of science, it no longer matters. They have lost. They had their chances over and over again to do so.

You are afraid that if you guess what they would be like in the case of a different state past that your guess won't match up with reality.

I prefer not to make stuff up if that is what you mean. Sometimes deductions can be made looking at the evidences and scripture though. That is how true superior science works.

If you can't say what they would be like without being told what they are like, you can't argue that they support your position at all, because you don't know enough about radiation to properly form a position on your own.

It is not by using present state radiation that any position of the former state can be made. But since the halos are all about so called science claims, they MUST use it.

And so we watch the claims of science wither here, with those that bark loudest in support of them, having been demonstrably unable to make even a third rate case!!

Hoo ha.

 

[46AND2]

The ability to present evidence is what we are looking for from proponents of the thread.

For example, if this applies to your claim, show us how we are certain the little spheres are caused or rather were caused this way..

"The shells are zones of radiation damage..."

So, we see the claim is accepted widely.

"The most widely accepted explanation is that the discolouration is caused by alpha particles emitted by the nuclei; the radius of the concentric shells are proportional to the particle's energy .."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo


Now, explain in some detail why you accept this, and why it must be that way.


Meanwhile, for any honest lurkers I will point out the insurmountable flaw in this claim.

Looking at what alpha particles are, it is apparent that they involve many forces and laws to exist.


"Alpha particles consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium nucleus."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_particle


What binds them together? If laws were not the same in the far past how can we know if exactly the same things would be bound in exactly the same way? The problem I see on your side is that you just open wide and swallow and believe that how things now work had to be how they always did. That is classic same state past belief 101!! It comes in many colors. In this case...discolored.

So your complaint about my argument being a strawman was just bluster, after all, just like I knew it was. You DO want to change chemical/physical constants in order to explain the halos. It's the same argument, dad. The decay rate is based, as you discovered, on these constants.

The problem is, when you change one of these constants, a bunch of other ones change with them....and in ways you wouldn't like. It would change them so profoundly, that the universe WOULDN'T WORK.

But of course, your explanation would be that in a different state past, there may not have even been any relationship between these constants.

This is the problem I have with your past state idea, dad, it doesn't EXPLAIN anything...it isn't even meant to...it's meant to HANDWAVE away explanations. It is your god of the gaps (a metaphor, not that it's your actual god).

You have no evidence that it ever existed, you have no definition of how it was different, you have no hypotheses for how it can explain a old-earth-looking young earth.

You simply use it as a lazy argument to dismiss all claims you don't agree with. I'd have a little more respect for it if you actually attempted some math to support it, or gave it SOME SORT of explanatory power. As it stands, it is the ultimate ad hoc handwave response.

 

[dad]

So your complaint about my argument being a strawman was just bluster, after all, just like I knew it was. You DO want to change chemical/physical constants in order to explain the halos.

I want to know what really caused them. I want to know if we know. I do not want someone offering belief based appeals. So..do you know? It isn't about how we want it to be, it is about how it was.

It's the same argument, dad. The decay rate is based, as you discovered, on these constants.

The problem is, when you change one of these constants, a bunch of other ones change with them....and in ways you wouldn't like. It would change them so profoundly, that the universe WOULDN'T WORK.

Easy to fix, either change them all, or have them start with this state. That way we do not change any of our constants.

Got any tough issues now?

But of course, your explanation would be that in a different state past, there may not have even been any relationship between these constants.

Forget any relationship...one has to exist before one has a relationship! Start there. We do not know what forces exactly existed balancing other forces and all working together in the former nature. We cannot merely assume only present state forces and laws existed, and try to dream up some new relationship only between those!!!!

This is the problem I have with your past state idea, dad, it doesn't EXPLAIN anything...it isn't even meant to...it's meant to HANDWAVE away explanations. It is your god of the gaps (a metaphor, not that it's your actual god).

You have no evidence that it ever existed, you have no definition of how it was different, you have no hypotheses for how it can explain a old-earth-looking young earth.

God did not explain the reasons why things were different, but He did explain they were in many ways. If science claims they were the same, they must prove it. It is not proof to assume they were and build on that and only on that.

You simply use it as a lazy argument to dismiss all claims you don't agree with.

False. God's argument is anything but lazy. Neither would I want to scurry like a rat and study lies and useless temporal vanities, that require dedicating one's life to the study. It is the results that count, not the energy spent being wrong!

I'd have a little more respect for it if you actually attempted some math to support it, or gave it SOME SORT of explanatory power. As it stands, it is the ultimate ad hoc handwave response.

Now you want to apply math to the spiritual. Maybe get math off the pedestal, and realize it doesn't extend to infinity and eternity and the spiritual in any way that allows you to crunch earth numbers and concepts using little letters!!!


I have shown a few posts ago about the alpha decay claim, and how your case is basically religion. I have my own beliefs, thanks. Let it be known that science does not know about halos of angels or rocks even!

 

[Seipai]

Sorry dad, you claimed to have shown that his beliefs about the radioactive halos were "religious". You did nothing of the sort.

Would you care to try again?

 

[juvenissun]

Please note that this thread is NOT about polonium halos, nor is it about uranium dating. Any reference to those topics will be considered off topic and ignored. We can discuss those in another thread, if you like, but I want to focus on this topic, please.

As Uranium 238 decays through alpha-decay, the emitted alpha particles create damage to the surrounding rock, forming a sphere around the inclusion whose radius is dependent on the alpha particle decay energy.

They are called halos because we study them by looking at cross-sections of the sphere.

Now, it takes many decay events to form this visible sphere, since each atom that decays only produces one dot on the sphere. Something like 10^9 atoms of uranium need to decay in order to produce this sphere.

Since the half life of Uranium is about 4.5 billion years, in order for enough atoms to decay to form a halo, it would take hundreds of millions of years.

This is evidence of an old earth.

But there is more, it's also evidence that the decay constant of Uranium 238 has been constant for that time. Why?

Because the decay rate is inversely related to the decay energy. So, if the decay rate was faster in the past, the halo radius would be a different size. So, since the Uranium halos have a radius consistent with the decay energy that we observe today, we know that decay rates have not changed for hundreds of millions of years.

Don't laugh at Anya. You are not any better.

Do you like to reconsider what you said in the highlighted?

 

[46AND2]

Don't laugh at Anya. You are not any better.

Do you like to reconsider what you said in the highlighted?

No, but I look forward to hearing your objection to it.

 

[juvenissun]

No, but I look forward to hearing your objection to it.

The halo has nothing to do with the half-life.

 

[46AND2]

The halo has nothing to do with the half-life.

Did you read the thread? The diameter of the halo is related to the alpha decay energy. The decay energy is inversely, exponentially related to the half-life. Ergo, the halo is related to the half-life.

 

[Steve Petersen]

Try this about polonium radiohalos:

"Polonium Haloes" Refuted

 

[46AND2]

Try this about polonium radiohalos:

"Polonium Haloes" Refuted

Appreciate the link, but as I stated in the opening post, this thread is a different topic.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Did you read the thread? The diameter of the halo is related to the alpha decay energy. The decay energy is inversely, exponentially related to the half-life. Ergo, the halo is related to the half-life.

As in, cause effect relationship.

 

[46AND2]

As in, cause effect relationship.

Yes, I suppose. Hadn't thought of it that way...if the decay rate is different, then the energy of the alpha particle tunneling through the Coulomb barrier will be different, effecting the depth at which the particle penetrates into the rock, and hence, changing the diameter of the halo.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Yes, I suppose. Hadn't thought of it that way...if the decay rate is different, then the energy of the alpha particle tunneling through the Coulomb barrier will be different, effecting the depth at which the particle penetrates into the rock, and hence, changing the diameter of the halo.

Really? I noticed that right away.

 

[46AND2]

The ability to present evidence is what we are looking for from proponents of the thread.

For example, if this applies to your claim, show us how we are certain the little spheres are caused or rather were caused this way..

"The shells are zones of radiation damage..."

So, we see the claim is accepted widely.

"The most widely accepted explanation is that the discolouration is caused by alpha particles emitted by the nuclei; the radius of the concentric shells are proportional to the particle's energy .."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohalo


Now, explain in some detail why you accept this, and why it must be that way.


Meanwhile, for any honest lurkers I will point out the insurmountable flaw in this claim.

Looking at what alpha particles are, it is apparent that they involve many forces and laws to exist.


"Alpha particles consist of two protons and two neutrons bound together into a particle identical to a helium nucleus."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_particle


What binds them together? If laws were not the same in the far past how can we know if exactly the same things would be bound in exactly the same way? The problem I see on your side is that you just open wide and swallow and believe that how things now work had to be how they always did. That is classic same state past belief 101!! It comes in many colors. In this case...discolored.

What binds them together? The strong nuclear force. You know, one of the 4 fundamental interactions in nature, along with electromagnetism, gravitation, and weak nuclear force.

You are the one with the positive claim here...that these fundamental interactions were once different. We have no reason to believe so, and all evidence we find supports the fact that they have been consistent.

The ONLY reason you have to think they were different is because you can't admit that you might be wrong in your INTERPRETATION of a 3000 year old COPIED and TRANSLATED text.

Meanwhile, we have a multitude of reasons to think that they have been consistent for many many many years. We have tree ring chronologies which are consistent with a constant decay rate for carbon-14 for 12,000+ years. We have lake varves, coral bands and speleothems, which all agree with each other, with the tree rings, and with the constant decay rate of carbon-14 throughout our C14 measurement limitations around 50,000 years.

From there, we can use Uranium-Thorium dating which overlaps and agrees with the coral bands, speleothems, and ice cores and is consistent with a constant decay rate for Uranium and thorium out to about 500,000 years.

After that, we can start using Ar/Ar dating which agrees with the Uranium/Thorium dating and ice cores, through the measurements of volcanic eruptions visible in the ice cores.

A little farther back, we can start using the U/Pb methods (multiple methods) and Rb/Sr, and several more.

There are more than 40 unique radiometric dating techniques that overlap and agree with each other, and also agree with several methods completely independent of radiometric dating. We see a daisy chain of consilience from nearly present day to the ancient past.

Consilience, dad. That is how we know that radiometric dating works. Learn the word. If you ever want to have a good argument against the methods, THAT is the word you are going to have to overcome.

But that isn't all. In addition to the fact that these halos are consistent not only with constant decay rates of Uranium, but also polonium, radon, radium, and thorium, but we can also detect radioactive decay from stars many many light years away and those rates are consistent with what we observe today, despite the fact that the decay had to have happened ages ago.

And there is more, there is the natural reactor in Oklo in Africa, which could not have occurred if the decay rates were ever different.

And there's more. A lot more. We don't "merely" assume that the rates have remained the same we have very good reason to think so.

And if the decay rates have remained the same, then so have the other constants, based on the use of different methods and different observations, using different laws that all boil down to the same thing...that the constants have been constant for a very long time.

And what do you have to rebut it? A minority opinion on how an ancient text should be interpreted in English.

So the onus is on you, dad. Give us a reason other than handwaving denial for why you argue this different state past.

Consilience. Because it works.

 

[PsychoSarah]

You know, dad has never given a cause for why the state changed in the first place (after all, if there was a prior state as he claims, then there must be some point in which all of these natural processes changed, and a reason for that change).

 

[biggles53]

You know, dad has never given a cause for why the state changed in the first place (after all, if there was a prior state as he claims, then there must be some point in which all of these natural processes changed, and a reason for that change).

He only has one reason........reality MUST be made to fit with his fantasy tales....!

That's it....there's no other reason for the childish garbage that he foists upon anyone silly enough to listen to him....

 

[PsychoSarah]

He only has one reason........reality MUST be made to fit with his fantasy tales....!

That's it....there's no other reason for the childish garbage that he foists upon anyone silly enough to listen to him....

So he doesn't even have some made up time in which he thinks the change occurred?

 

[46AND2]

So he doesn't even have some made up time in which he thinks the change occurred?

No. And that's why I wrote the post about his idea having no explanatory power. It is a straight handwaving, blanket denial for anything he can't come up with an actual argument for.

Edit: sorry, misread your statement. I think he believes it happened sometime about a hundred years or so after the flood if I recall correctly.

 

[PsychoSarah]

No. And that's why I wrote the post about his idea having no explanatory power. It is a straight handwaving, blanket denial for anything he can't come up with an actual argument for.

Ridiculous, arguing for a position that doesn't even have a complete foundation, and the portions that have been built are shaky at best.

 

[dad]

Yes, I suppose. Hadn't thought of it that way...if the decay rate is different, then the energy of the alpha particle tunneling through the Coulomb barrier will be different, effecting the depth at which the particle penetrates into the rock, and hence, changing the diameter of the halo.

Since you brought that up, I might point out that the charge factors into things here.

"The elementary charge, usually denoted as e, is the electric charge carried by a single proton, or equivalently, the negation (opposite) of the electric charge carried by a single electron."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb_barrier

There is also the attractive force, and etc.