slightly tougher science question

[daveleau]

Hi everybody!

Doing a bit of thinking on a subject and an idea came to me that has to do with the degredation of isotopes. I know there is a standard half-life for the degredation of molecules, but is there a way to increase the degredation?

If you have I-131, P-32 or tritium (Hydrogen isotope with half-life of 12.32 years, decay rate of 5.626 % per year), can you increase its rate of decay? It does not have to be a practical application. It can be a massive undertaking.

My thought were about carbon dating. I am curious if anything could have sped the decay of C over time to make things appear older than our calculations of C decay show.

Thanks
Dave

[zgf2022]

I seem to remember there being a way to affect the decay rate, but i cant remember it at the moment, ill see if i can find out though.

[TonTo]

Easy,
just take the supertoniom radiustion and subject it to a bombardment of tritium cathlodict ithisium isotopes. This will increase the amount of the decay that the molecules.

Simple enough undertaking.

[zgf2022]

i found several articles that mention the errors in carbon dating, but nothing about the increased decay rate. although i could swear i have heard something about this before.

here is a link to an article on carbon dating that i thought was very interesting Link

[Gomer]

hmmmm... My gut feeling is that it is extremely constant. This feeling is that atomic clocks (the most precise means of measuring time) are based on atomic decay.

[daveleau]

I believe that they are currently constant, but I am wondering if massive occurences can speed up the decay. Not sure what...maybe massive amounts of sunspot activity increase/decrease in heat. Something that could happen in the past.
Dave


Tonto-

[vass0922]

maybe put it in a microwave?
If you think about it, typically the way we "break the rules" to allow us to do things we're not supposed to is with radiation or nuclear manipulation of some sort ...
However, can you radiate radioactive material?
I'd say just go in there, rip of a few protons, make it all lead
Just as easy as that, right?
(not the most stable lead in the world though lol)

[BFlurie]

Bombarding it w/high speed neutrons and/or heavy ions might do it. Some nuclei would be very resistant to this (like the stable iron nucleus), but radioactive nuclei are inherently unstable anyway. But the economic and safety cost of this would probably be prohibitive.

A nearby supernova, say within 50 light-years, would blast high speed particles at the earth -- mostly protons & alpha particles.

[daveleau]

Well, I am not thinking of ways people do it (speed up C decay), but thinking that natural phenomena ove rthe millenia could have sped things up a bit.

Not totally sure. Not even sure I have the concept of C dating yet anyway. Just a thought.

Thanks
Dave

[Philip1952]

I remember a few years a go on a PBS station. They were making a fake item to fool antique inspectors. They hit it with Xrays from a hospital xray machine. It carbon dated the object they were working on quite a bit.