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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.'"
The sun has a cycle of it's own (about 1 month). They did a much more accurate study and found the decay rate is tightly correlated to the sun's cycle.
Longer version:
The theory now is that it has to do with the neutrino flux. As we move further from the sun the flux goes down by 1/R^2. We saw that fluctuation first. But the neutrino flux also varies with the solar cycle which is independent of the earth's temperature.
This is very very cool experimental physics. Kudo's to them!
I don't think anyone really believes the earth is 6000 years old.
Just that Adam lived 6000 years ago.
Nope, there are plenty of people around who believe that the days referred to in Genesis are literal days, that Adam was around less than a week after the Earth itself, and that all of this happened six-millennia-and-change ago. They even have a shiny web site where they explain everything.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers#/topic/age-of-the-earth
Don't underestimate these people. They're loons, but they're well-organized and numerous loons.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Not quite. Cooper found no variation with regards to one specific isotope of plutonium. There could be a different mechanism at work to cause plutonium's decay, or multiple mechanisms. Maybe neutrinos are involved. Maybe not. The ideas presented in TFA are theories, which will (hopefully) eventually lead to a testable hypothesis.A single contradictory result, without explanation, should not be enough to halt research in the field.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Except that closer analysis of the Si-32 data from Brookhaven also showed a 33-day cycle correlating to the rotation of the Sun's core.
-- Alastair
Also remember that they are largely restricted to the US and the Middle East.
Bullpoopie. Such ideas have similar prevalence here in protestant parts of Western Europe. Evangelicals are just not as organized politically, and civilians don't have a way of influencing the curriculum of schools, so it's not a high profile issue.
In Catholic tradition, it's not as common to think of the bible as the literal word of God, so it's less of an issue.
Neutrino density is not going to vary a lot by hemisphere because the planet is fairly transparent to neutrinos. However, the Earth as a whole (including the southern hemisphere) is some 3% closer to the sun during the winter (January) than during the summer.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your side of the debate, this is not the case.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/majority-republicans-doubt-theory-evolution.aspx
while the title of the article focuses on Republicans, it goes on to discuss Americans in general. Fully 66% of the country holds to some form of a young creationist perspective for humanity (strangely combined with a more even distribution of views on evolution and an old planet/universe. If anything, by these numbers, which appear to hold up in other surveys, the evolutionary system appears to be the vocal minority's position. Within the survey, 38% held to a theistic evolution-esque model.
Anecdotal evidence can be deceptive, I was somewhat surprised to read about it too:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/313/5788/765/DC1/1
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism
In another article, not available in English, the numbers were broken down by denomination. Catholics were less likely to take the bible literally, which brings the percentage of creationists down in Germany and the Netherlands, which are both about half catholic, half protestant/none/other
>>Jesus spoke about the literalness of the historical record of the Old Testament, and repeatedly throughout the Bible itself is the historicity of the creation account referred-to.
In the sense that God was the creator of the universe, sure. But the ancient Israelites had a very different conception of "history" than we do. Heroditus hadn't even been born when the early books of the Bible were written. Just as modern people have trouble dealing with the laws in the Old Testament sometimes, because they are structured differently from the more precise laws of today. So the debate is over if the account is a spiritual narrative or a historical narrative. Nachmanides and Maimonides both consider it spiritual narrative, and they often were at different ends of the spectrum from each other.
Various quotes -
Colossians 1:15: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."
Matthew 19:4: ""Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'"
Or: "...At the briefest instant following creation all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a very small place, no larger than a grain of mustard. The matter at this time was very thin, so intangible, that it did not have real substance. It did have, however, a potential to gain substance and form and to become tangible matter. From the initial concentration of this intangible substance in its minute location, the substance expanded, expanding the universe as it did so. As the expansion progressed, a change in the substance occurred. This initially thin noncorporeal substance took on the tangible aspects of matter as we know it. From this initial act of creation, from this etherieally thin pseudosubstance, everything that has existed, or will ever exist, was, is, and will be formed." -Nachmanides, ~1250AD
If you can measure three significant digits, and your effect is in the fifth, then you do not see it. However a more precise measuring apparatus may measure up to six significant digits, and there the effect may become visible.
Only when the effect becomes visible you can start saying anything about statistical significance
This is not true. By collecting many replicates a distribution can be modelled with an estimated mean possessing an accuracy greater than the possible measurement precision of an individual replicate.
Let's say you have two distributions - one centered at 4.1 and one at 4.4. Standard deviation of both distributions is 1. Your measuring equipment only has an integer resolution. About 95% of samples will have a value that is +/-2 of the true mean. So you will end up with many samples of values, predominantly ...2,3,4,5,6,7... By analysing the distribution of these samples you can derive confidence intervals for the sample mean, and as the number of samples is increased, the mean estimates will converge to 4.1 and 4.4, and the confidence of these estimates will increase. Even though you do not have sub-integer resolution, by analysing the distribution of integer samples, you can deduce that your samples have in fact been taken from two independent underlying populations.