12 ms·
Previously unknown isotope of uranium discovered
- bell-cot 4y ago> ...one of them, uranium-241, had never been observed before and that it marks the first time since 1979 that a neutron-rich uranium isotope has been discovered. The researchers also calculated that uranium-241 likely has a half-life of just 40 minutes. So - If the "hard" SF novel you're writing needs some sort of Unobtainium for its big hand-wave...this discovery probably doesn't fit the bill.
- ortusdux 4y agoFor that you are going to need something in the predicted "Island of Stability", which ironically is a great name for a hard SF series. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_of_stability
- phkahler 4y agoFor SF you could also claim that an external magnetic field has a subtle influence on stability and is sufficient to go from 40 day halflife to indefinite stability. This can also be used as an additional critical element.
- Out_of_Characte 4y agoYou dont have to use anything complicated, just accelerate it to the speed of light and the half life will stay the same but we would observe it for significantly longer.
- maicro 4y agoPlus you get to invent portable closed-loop particle accelerators...net win, I'd say.
- Out_of_Characte 4y agoI was just thinking that theres another way to store short half lives or other perishables, just create a miniature black hole, it will fall for infinity but you could retrieve the item once you stop feeding the black hole energy and it'll evaporate by hawking radiation in microseconds. Ive been watching too much doctor who and now I want a thermoscan based on black holes for my tea
- dylan604 4y agowhat kind of shielding would be required to keep all of that radiation from killing you? i still don't trust the shielding on my microwave, so i can't imagine trying to shield the effects of a black hole
- ben_w 4y agoThere is no safe way to be near a black hole. If you have one of a "mere" 606 million tons, the Hawking radiation is hot enough to directly include fast moving positrons (and has a luminosity of 1.178 GW), while still massive enough to spaghettify you (370g at 10cm). If the black hole is lower mass, the radiation gets even more energetic. The radiation from 606 thousand ton black holes (sometimes suggested for Hawking radiation drives for spacecraft) is hot enough the radiation will either include antiprotons, or at least the photons will be energetic enough to spontaneously create them on impact: https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2022/05/14/no-a-black-hole-cant-be-used-as-a-rocket/ https://kitsunesoftware.wordpress.com/2022/05/14/no-a-black-...
- cwillu 4y agoAlas, the way you feed energy to a blackhole is by dropping things into it. (Yes, there is a well-known paradox/open-problem implied by this.)
- lokimedes 4y agoNuclear Isomers are a wonderfully complex landscape of what-ifs.
- bell-cot 4y agoCool idea! A million plot possibilities could easily plug into "whoever controls the Unobtainium Handwave Device absolutely must keep the Para-Critical Core Stabilization Magnetic Field Generators super-cooled and fully energized at all times...".
- phkahler 4y ago>> Cool idea! Once upon a time I wondered if magenetic fields influenced nuclear reation rates. Some googling suggested the answer is no, but I found very little in the way of actual experimental results testing it. In more recent times I think I did see one referene to an actual effect but I don't recall what it was. So IMHO this door is clearly open for fictional exploration.
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoIt's generally a bad idea to use an already known substance as Unobtainium, as it forces greater suspense of disbelief for those who know, or can predict, the properties of the substance. Ice-9, Dilithium, magnetic monopoles, are all much better Unobtainiums.
- ben_w 4y agoThe first two now have the same problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_IX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilithium
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoSort of, but not in context of their original usage. Vonnegut's Ice 9 predated the naming of the real Ice 9, and Dilithium in Star Trek is not Li2. But yeah, in general I agree about dilithium. It would have been better if Star Trek had chosen a different name.
- ben_w 4y agoIndeed. I like that in Babylon 5 they went with "Quantum 40". SG-1 kinda has the same problem, when you learn that Naqada is 20 km from Luxor and Kelowna is close to where the show was filmed.
- anonymouskimmer 4y agoSomeone, somewhere, always has to suspend disbelief about locations in movies and TV shows, especially TV shows. :)
- jrootabega 4y agoIt's easy to imagine that Naqādah the place was named by the Goa'uld because it had something to do with Naquadah processing or experiments. The expository dialogue writes itself there. Kelowna is more of a stretch, but I'm betting that someone in the writers' room said "Hey, we already had a Salish episode; if anyone asks, we could just say that some native spirits influenced the names on both planets!" Apparently those people actually were the first inhabitants of that area. So all they'd need to do is connect them to Langara!
- hrunt 4y agoI am not a physicist, so I am hoping someone with more understanding can explain this to me. Why do we say that we "discovered" a new uranium isotope that scientists effectively created in a lab under very specific, man-made conditions? How come we don't say that we "manufactured" this new isotope? For all intents and purposes, this kind of atomic configuration would not exist except for man's specific efforts.
- tokamak-teapot 4y agoIt was discovered that it was something that can be created.
- gonzo41 4y agoThe conditions of the lab may/probably occur somewhere in the universe. Being able to transmutate one element into another, or to modify an element by adding more neutrons is useful because then we know more and it informs out imagination and understanding of what could be.
- CydeWeys 4y agoThe universe is so vast that anything we are able to create must exist elsewhere at some time or place.
- nullc 4y agoThis isotope? sure! but that isn't true generally. I think the boundary of what we can argue should or shouldn't exist elsewhere on the basis of statistical arguments is probably pretty interesting. questions like: what is the simplest man made crystal that is very unlikely to occur naturally anywhere in the universe?
- iamerroragent 4y agoBecause the conditions for the universe to allow for this configuration of matter existed before man. Humans, a product of the universe itself, just discovered or found a way to configure matter this way. Great question though and one I like to ponder myself. Like the logic to describe math itself is put down by humans but that that logic is able to exist at all for humans to discover or exlore is perplexing.
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- ISL 4y ago40 minutes is a very long time, especially in the rare-isotope world.