The Strange Case of Solar Flares and Radioactive Decay Rates

DarkKnightRadick writes "Current models for radioactive decay have been challenged by, of all sources, the sun. According to the article, 'On Dec 13, 2006, the sun itself provided a crucial clue, when a solar flare sent a stream of particles and radiation toward Earth. Purdue nuclear engineer Jere Jenkins, while measuring the decay rate of manganese-54, a short-lived isotope used in medical diagnostics, noticed that the rate dropped slightly during the flare, a decrease that started about a day and a half before the flare.' This is important because the rate of decay is very important not just for antique dating, but also for cancer treatment, time keeping, and the generation of random numbers. This isn't a one time measurement, either. 'Checking data collected at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island and the Federal Physical and Technical Institute in Germany, they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation. The decay rate was ever so slightly faster in winter than in summer.'"

Comments

Re:Earth Date

[MichaelSmith]

... they came across something even more surprising: long-term observation of the decay rate of silicon-32 and radium-226 seemed to show a small seasonal variation.

Chances are it's just seasonal effects on the testing equipment, with varying temperatures and humidity levels.

Maybe the cleaning lady dusts the lab more in with winter because there is less gardening to do, so there is less background radiation, and the instruments are calibrated once a month on a test target plus background.

dogma

[yyxx]

Traditional physics dogma was that nothing affected decay rates. There is probably a lot of other dogma that eventually needs to fall.

Re:Just to pre-empt it...

[sheph]

Really Old is still going to be Really Old

I'm not sure I'd hang my hat on that. As the parent suggests there have been plenty of instances that man thought he had the answer only to discover that he wasn't just a little wrong, but flat out completely incorrect (see flat earth). Carbon dating the same artifact can return results that vary by 100,000's of years. That's not exactly a solid science, and if we're going to use those methods to say things like the earth is billions of years old; ergo the Bible is factually incorrect I'm going to stand up and call bs. Biblical truth has been handed down for over 2000 years. In the last 2000 years how many times have scientists changed their mind about what they know to be true? Sorry, I have more faith in God than I do in man. But then I don't have a vested interest in disproving His existence.