From: Dickey, Michael F (michael_f_dickey@groton.pfizer.com)
Date: Thu Feb 20 2003 - 15:14:55 MST
----Original Message-----
From: Hal Finney [mailto:hal@finney.org]
"Apparently there is some controversy about this Hafnium nuclear-decay
phenomenon. Lawrence Livermore National Lab tried and failed to
reproduce the effect in 1991, according to this press release,
http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/06news/NewsReleases/2001/NR-01-08-05.html.
I don't know the current state of the controversy."
From that paper - "In other words, the X-ray irradiation did not decrease
the time it takes for hafnium to decay; a result that Becker and the team
claim is consistent with nuclear physics"
My knowledge is limited on this subject, but I was under the impression that
the nucleons of Hafnium could be excited to higher energy levels and remain
stable and coaxed to release their stored energy as gamma rays when hit with
X rays. The nucleonic excitation has nothing to do with the weak nuclear
radioactive decay of the host atom. So what does it matter that the LLNL
found that the X-Ray irradiation did not 'decrease the time it takes for
hafnium to decay" It shouldn't, it should, however, decrease the time it
takes for the excited nucleons to decay to a non-excited state! Did these
researches just misunderstand what was going on here? Or am I just entirely
confused?
Michael Dickey
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