On Jul 27, 2009, at 7:33 PM, Jones Beene wrote:
Horace
> The half-life of potassium 40 is 1.3 billion years... It is not
logical to expect a cavity effect to cause any detectable change in
the amount of 40K.
Yes, we would be looking for a dramatic change in the decay rate as
measured in the average microrem per hour, or whatever, but
"dramatic" or logical is not the problem - it is even less logical
to expect the drastic changes which have been claimed in such
things as thorium remediation. In either case, if there was
pronounced time dilation at the Casimir geomtery - it could be
extreme - not gradual.
Admittedly, the operative word there for thorium is "claimed". But
speaking of the Barker patents, which is a situation of high
electrostatic voltage containment = a few of those claims were for
changes on the order of 10^6 in decay rates ... and I am convinced
they are accurate, from personal work I have done.
I have not made the point clear. Suppose your sample of 40 K
actually does change on the order of 10^6 in decay rate while in the
cavity, and resumes its old decay rate when outside the cavity. It's
new half life is then 1.3 million years. In one year you consume
about (1/2)(1/(1.3x10^6) = .000000386 of your 40K. If you run the
experiment for 36 days, or about 1/10 a year. You consume about
(1/10)(. 000000386) = 0.000000386 of the sample. Now, after the
experiment, if you digest the material and extract your 40K, and
count it, you will have to distinguish a loss of 0.000000386 of the
sample, far less than the accuracy of any kind of extraction that can
be performed. Unless you use a short half life isotope, you need to
measure cavity count rates in-situ, or determine them from calorimetry.
If you use an isotope with a short half life, you only have to run
the experiment for about the length of the half life to see major
results. Technetium has a half life of 6 hours (not 66 hours as I
mistakenly typed earlier, it is 99Mo that has the 66 hour half life,
and 99mTe is produced from 99Mo in hospitals), so if you run the
experiment 6 hours and measure the count, it should be about 1/2 the
original. If the half life is reduced to 1/1000 of 6 hours, or 21.6
seconds, then a 6 hour run will leave only (1/2)^1000 of the original
material, a robust result!
I would not hesitate to give 40K a shot, if I were in Fran's shoes
and thought it would help to validate the theory - but sure, if
other isotopes with shorter half-lives are available, and can be
placed in cavities as easily as by vacuum melting - then go for
it ... why not.
Then there is always the tactic of cannibalizing your smoke
detector ;-)
Jones
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
