Tue Aug 27 09:46:38 1996

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Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 09:45:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: "James R. Adair" 
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Carbon dating (fwd)
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(Andrew S. Kulikovsky:)
> > It has been shown in a laboratory (I can't remember
> > the guys name off hand but I can look it up) that when
> > C-14 is placed across a potential difference ie. in an
> > electrical field, the rate of decay speeds up significantly
> > 
> > This means that everytime an electrical storms passes
> > by the C-14 is decayed much more rapidly than usual.
> 
(Paul Farrar:)
> That is false.
> 
> The largest known variation for element transmutation is 0.18% for
> 7Be. C has no significant natural variation.

I agree with Paul Farrar here.  We have to distinguish variation in the 
rate of _deposit_ of C14 in the environment (due to volcanic activity, 
meteorites, etc.), which does occur, from variation in the rate of decay, 
which is a process internal to the Carbon atom.  It seems unlikely to me 
that one fundamental force of nature (the electromagnetic) would affect 
the workings of another fundamental force (the weak nuclear force, if I 
remember correctly, is what causes nuclear decay in radioactive 
substances), at least under normal circumstances (i.e., outside of a 
particle accelerator, where the various forces tend toward a single 
force, according to theory).

Jimmy Adair
Manager of Information Technology Services, Scholars Press
    and
Managing Editor of TELA, the Scholars Press World Wide Web Site
---------------> http://scholar.cc.emory.edu <-----------------

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