The unpredictable "Asymmetric fission"

[Bishadi]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/66963/title/Nuclear_split_surprises

More than seven decades after German chemists discovered nuclear fission — the splitting of an atom that is harnessed by nuclear energy and nuclear weapons — scientists still can’t describe the process in detail. A paper to appear in Physical Review Letters underscores that knowledge gap with the report of a totally unexpected type of fission in the element mercury. Instead of splitting into two equal-mass chunks as theory predicts, this bit of mercury split into uneven chunks, one lighter and one heavier than expected

so the evidence does not fit, the mathematical theory (predictions)?

how is that possible?

Not only were the products of mercury-180 fission asymmetric, but it’s the first time researchers have seen asymmetric fission and not been able to explain it by the filled-shells theory. “It was a big surprise,” says team member Piet Van Duppen, a nuclear physicist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. “This is a totally new form of asymmetric fission.”


“What we have here,” he adds, “is a new experimental tool to really verify our understanding of the atomic nucleus.”

does this mean, that perhaps what was thought to be true, could be wrong?


imagine that!

 

[Fnord]

so the evidence does not fit, the mathematical theory (predictions)?

The theory needs revision, and will be revised. That's the nature of science -- it's self-correcting.

Only in religion and other delusionary mental states is anything certain.

 

[SonOfLaertes]

Bishadi, did your eyes glaze over when they got to this part?:

“What we have here,” he adds, “is a new experimental tool to really verify our understanding of the atomic nucleus.”

When will you understand that unexpected experimental results are a boon to research, not a hindrance? If you are you are having trouble completing a complex puzzle with a thousand pieces, and you finally, after much struggle, find a piece that you accidentally forced into the wrong slot, have you made progress or have you taken a step backward?

Where the science community speaks confidently of a model describing a certain phenomenon, the bashers/creationists whine about inflexibility. Where the science community acknowledges a lack of confidence/understanding regarding a model, the bashers/creationists whoop and holler. What a double standard - a dishonest, self-serving, opportunistic, aggravating double-standard.

 

[RussDill]

I think what Bishadi fails to understand is that while we do have the math to describe what happens when a mercury-180 atom decays, we don't have the means to actually perform it.

While calculating the quantum system that is a hydrogen atom is complex, it can be done. Moving up the scale to heavier elements though, the complexity increases quite dramatically to the point that approximations must quickly be used.

All they are saying in the article is that the approximations used need revising.

For those interested, here is a page that attempts to calculate the ground energy of a helium atom by various methods:

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/qmech/lectures/node128.html

Here's lithium:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...b10f467e803d1ae915e5c8f05d72d842&searchtype=a

And these are just estimations of ground energy state, just try to imagine what happens when you get to mercury and the question is not just ground energy...

You'll of course ignore all this, not realizing how important approximations and iterative methods are to science, nor what a big deal it is to be able to refine them.

 

[Bishadi]

The theory needs revision, and will be revised. That's the nature of science -- it's self-correcting.

ie... knowledge evolves.

i agree

the obsolete by extinct!

Only in religion and other delusionary mental states is anything certain.

nothing certain to a religious wingnut.


the delusional are the fools that believe everyone else is more capable then they are.


Only a complacent idiot could be more delusional than a religious wingnut because they believe, they have everyone elses knowledge backing them up.

 

[Bishadi]

I think what Bishadi fails to understand is that while we do have the math to describe what happens when a mercury-180 atom decays, we don't have the means to actually perform it.

that is about all you have to add.

as the rest of your post is irrelevant to the thread (asymemetric fission) and the divide recognized between the "shell theory" and evidence.

You'll of course ignore all this, not realizing how important approximations and iterative methods are to science, nor what a big deal it is to be able to refine them.

You have, of course, been approximated and found to be of little value to any refining of any method of science.

 

[GlennB]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/66963/title/Nuclear_split_surprises

so the evidence does not fit, the mathematical theory (predictions)?

how is that possible?

Towards the bottom of the article it's explained, briefly. Basically, intuition doesn't always cut the mustard.

 

[Kid Eager]

ie... knowledge evolves.

i agree

the obsolete by extinct!

nothing certain to a religious wingnut.

the delusional are the fools that believe everyone else is more capable then they are.

Only a complacent idiot could be more delusional than a religious wingnut because they believe, they have everyone elses knowledge backing them up.

Absolutely - the obvious by extinct every time.

the delusional are the fools who believe everybody else who makes statements ascribing behaviours to everyone else are more capable than they are in a blanket statement way.

Complacent idiots have no monopoly on believing what others say, not that this in itself is any more wrong than idiots with an exaggerated perception of this own adequacy disregarding other sources of information. The subversion of the dominant paradigm is predicated upon the distillation of internalised and externalised knowing. Labelling is dangerous if one has trouble writing or affixing labels - smeary labels are hard to read and the sticky can sometime stick wrong.

 

[John Jones]

Bishadi, did your eyes glaze over when they got to this part?:

“What we have here,” he adds, “is a new experimental tool to really verify our understanding of the atomic nucleus.”

When will you understand that unexpected experimental results are a boon to research, not a hindrance? If you are you are having trouble completing a complex puzzle with a thousand pieces, and you finally, after much struggle, find a piece that you accidentally forced into the wrong slot, have you made progress or have you taken a step backward?

Where the science community speaks confidently of a model describing a certain phenomenon, the bashers/creationists whine about inflexibility. Where the science community acknowledges a lack of confidence/understanding regarding a model, the bashers/creationists whoop and holler. What a double standard - a dishonest, self-serving, opportunistic, aggravating double-standard.

Pseudo-scientists frequently complain about science being fickle out one side of their mouth and dogmatic out the other.

Go figure.

 

[jasonpatterson]

If you read the entire article you linked, it describes why the split occurred. Asymmetric fission is the norm for most isotopes, such that the products wind up having filled (or as close to it as is reasonably possible) nuclear shells. This is a case where that doesn't happen because a second consideration, described in the article as the energy efficiency of the reaction, has a stronger effect.

In much the same way we might have once looked at chemical reactions and said, "Chemical reactions occur in such a way as to produce the maximum amount of heat." Looking at a greater selection of reactions, we might then find some that do not fit that rule (ex: Reactions that increase entropy greatly but absorb heat.) and thus have to change it. These sorts of changes are how science advances...

 

[Bishadi]

If you read the entire article you linked, it describes why the split occurred. Asymmetric fission is the norm for most isotopes, such that the products wind up having filled (or as close to it as is reasonably possible) nuclear shells.

ie.. the isotopes

This is a case where that doesn't happen because a second consideration, described in the article as the energy efficiency of the reaction, has a stronger effect.

the difference is quite the opposite of the the chemical reduction. ie... it is not the energy being released (to reduce the total state of the product) but that within a specific environment, the energy can be sustain with the mass and the 'shells' do not fall into the lowest state.

In much the same way we might have once looked at chemical reactions and said, "Chemical reactions occur in such a way as to produce the maximum amount of heat."

heat is not the product. TO observe a chemical reaction at the atomic scale, (elements/em) then the energy released is em (the photon per se; bohr analogy). ie... the momentum to mass, is caused by em, not "heat."

 

[RussDill]

ie.. the isotopes

Albuquerque or Springfield?

 

[jasonpatterson]

the difference is quite the opposite of the the chemical reduction. ie... it is not the energy being released (to reduce the total state of the product) but that within a specific environment, the energy can be sustain with the mass and the 'shells' do not fall into the lowest state.

Why I should be surprised that an analogy was completely lost on you, I do not know, but I am...

heat is not the product. TO observe a chemical reaction at the atomic scale, (elements/em) then the energy released is em (the photon per se; bohr analogy). ie... the momentum to mass, is caused by em, not "heat."

It would be fairly stunning for a scientist to understand that electromagnetic energy could be released in a chemical reaction but not to understand that there are other factors than energy loss/gain that determine whether a reaction will tend to occur. Again, it was a simple analogy, one that fit the situation well, and that you completely failed to understand. At the very least, your correction, which I do not agree is entirely accurate either, is a modification of an existing premise. THAT was the point of the analogy.