Sciencemadness Discussion Board
Not logged in [Login ]
Go To Bottom

Printable Version  
 Pages:  1  2  
Author: Subject: Why does Fusion work?
setback
Hazard to Self
**




Posts: 50
Registered: 17-5-2009
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 09:42



Quote:

The dating of the universe and the earth is a complete pseudoscience and has no more scienctific [sic] credibility than the nazi racial sciences.



I find it kind of ironic that you believe the dating of Earth to be pseudoscience, yet you entertain the notion that Earth could be 7000 years old.

Also, why do you feel the need to bring up the Nazis?
View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 09:47


You know whats cool about ice cores?(no pun intended) They prove that planes exsisted over 200,000 years ago!

http://creation.com/the-lost-squadron

[Edited on 13-7-2009 by tom haggen]




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
setback
Hazard to Self
**




Posts: 50
Registered: 17-5-2009
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 09:53


Wow, creation.com, huh? Sounds like a real credible source. I can show you links that support principles of alchemy and homeopathy but that doesn't mean there is any truth to them. This is a forum for the discussion of science, not pseudoscience, and certainly not for stories from the bible.

Stories from the bible are just that, told to keep people in line back in the day. Also told to try and explain things that they hadn't the first clue about. To take them seriously is laughable. What about the dinosaurs? Did the devil place fossils in the ground to try and hide the truth? Are shows like the Flintstones documentary?

[Edited on 13-7-2009 by setback]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
*********




Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline

Mood: Waiting for spring

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 10:24


It is just inviting a flame war to bring Nazi comparisons into a science thread. It is also inviting more heat than illumination to use this thread as a jumping-off point for attacks on religious belief.

I ask that everyone confine their discussion to scientific and factual claims and interpretations.

I don't think tom haggen's misperception of the age of the earth should go unchallenged, but I don't think he should suffer a full-blown attack on religious belief in response. We have religious members here who are fine scientists and contributors. It is unnecessary to attack the entire edifice of religion to challenge the half-truths, untruths, and philosophical pretzels typically employed in defense of a young earth.

[Edited on 7-13-2009 by Polverone]




PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
vulture
Forum Gatekeeper
*****




Posts: 3330
Registered: 25-5-2002
Location: France
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 11:45


Quote:

You know whats cool about ice cores?(no pun intended) They prove that planes exsisted over 200,000 years ago!


Have you actually read that article? First of all, it does not mention that anyone claimed the ice the planes were found in was 200,000 years old. Secondly, they were buried on the Greenland ice shelf, which has comparatively fast moving glaciers and much more snowfall than Antartica, where most icecores used for these purposes come from.

They then dispute the claim of the planes sinking into the ice that the surrounding air wasn't room temperature. Ever thought about the fact that planes that just landed are hot?

The tactic used is classic. Find something extraordinary that illustrates your point and ignore all evidence that suggests otherwise. Be sure to be vague in any claims you make so it's harder to dispute them.


[Edited on 13-7-2009 by vulture]




One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
NeutralIon
Harmless
*




Posts: 28
Registered: 19-6-2005
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 11:58


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
The dating of the universe and the earth is a complete pseudoscience and has no more scientific credibility than the nazi racial sciences.




[Edited on 13-7-2009 by tom haggen]


Time to invoke Godwin's Law, declare this thread over and tom haggen has lost




Knowledge is Good
View user's profile View All Posts By User
not_important
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 13-7-2009 at 19:26


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
Radioisotope dating is completely flawed. The only way radioisotope dating would be accurate is if you assumed that the level of radio active isotopes that you are using to date things with have remained at a constant level in the earth's atmosphere indefinitely. To assume we know what the composition of the earth's atmosphere was even 50,000 years ago is complete rubish. I have no proof that the earth and the universe are less than 7,000 thousand years old, I'm simply saying that theres no proof that the universe and the earth are billions of years old. Using geometry and the physics of light to guess how far away stars are, to prove how old the universe is, cannot be trusted either. People can't prove how long stars have been in exsistence by measuring there distance from us. If you have no idea how something came into exsistance, there's no way you can prove how long it has exsisted for. For all you know a magical smurf who can fly on a surf board made it all appear. The dating of the universe and the earth is a complete pseudoscience and has no more scientific credibility than the nazi racial sciences.




[Edited on 13-7-2009 by tom haggen]


Carbon 14 is the common radioisotope used for dating that has a relationship to the atmosphere, and also to cosmic ray flux values which I'm surprised you failed to mention.

C14 dating is only good for a 50 kyear span, longer than that and too much of it has decayed away to remain detectable. Other isotopes, ones not formed by cosmic ray collisions with atmospheric atoms, are used for longer spans.

As for C14 - The concentration of nitrogen in the atmosphere is the important one, plus the cosmic ray flux. Reduce the amount of N2 in the atmosphere, or reduce the cosmic ray flux, and reduce the C14 production rate as a result.

Massive changes in the amount of N2 in the atmosphere over the last few thousand years are unlikely, based on our understanding of the nitrogen cycle; cosmic ray intensity is a more likely variable. But we don't have to guess at the historical values of these, as we can correlate tree rings in multiple samples of wood, count the rings, and calibrate C14 readings to dates from ring counting for 8 to 9 thousand years back.

And lake sediments give us another check on C14, allowing us to say that the rate of production of C14 has not changed more than 15% in the last 22 thousand years. But even the tree rings take us back further than 7 thousand years.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/dave_matson/young-ear...

But for dating rocks in terms of geological time spans, we don't use C14 produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays, we use radioisotopes that to produce require conditions much more extreme than exist on Earth outside of nuclear reactors and particle accelerators. The dating process takes samples of minerals that exclude the decay child element in their formation, and look at the concentration of the parent isotope and element along with those of the child. In some cases several different parent-child pairs can be used for the same mineral sample, allowing a check for contamination and lose of a parent or child element.

Related to this method is the concentration of a child isotope in a mineral where the parent radioisotope is short lived and has totally decayed away. As a dating process all this can tell us is that the sample must be older than the extinction time of the parent, but as most of the isotopes used half a half live of between 10^5 and 10^7 years years, the samples must be at least ten times as old as that.

If you can't trust geometry and the physics of electromagnetic radiation, I assume that you never travel by airplane or use radio communications, as both depend on those untrustworthy things.

Again, as I noted in my earlier comment, there are a number of occurrences of sedimentary rocks where the same pattern repeats over and over. This may be alternation between deep and shallow water sediments, with the associated ripple patterns &ct. Or it may be dozens and dozens of layers of fossilised soil, topped by coal, then marine sediments, beach deposits, and once again soil. These repeating layers could not have been laid down in a short period of time, they show the grading of current sedimentary deposits, development of soil with roots or roots casts, and so on. In a few cases they include layers of volcanic materials, which can be dated and are found to agree with the sequence they hold in the layer cake of sediments; they also show weathering patterns as can be seen in current volcanic deposits - weather that is much too slow for the full structure to have laid down in even thousands of years.



View user's profile View All Posts By User
JohnWW
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 00:52


Another evidence of the age of Earth's rocks and many of its ancient (millions of years old) fossils is potassium-argon dating, in which long-lived K-40 in hard rocks (particularly granite, diorite, granodiorite, and sedimentary rocks derived therefrom, and to lesser extents more basic igneous rocks) decays to Ar-40 by positron emission or K-electron capture and to Ca-40 by beta-emission with a half-life of 1.249 x 10^9 years. The extent to which the K-40 has decayed, as judged by the Ar-40 left trapped in the rocks (Ca-40 is too common to be used), and also by the remaining K-40- radioactivity compared to that in fresh samples of K from sources like sea-water, enables an estimate of the ages of the rocks to be made, based on the half-life of K-40; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium-argon_dating . Rubidium-strontium dating works the same way, being also useful for dating even older specimens of the same rocks containing high levels of K, Rb, and Cs, being based on the decay of Rb-87 with a half-life of 4.88 x 10^10 years; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubidium-strontium_dating .

Another test of rock ages, applicable mostly to granitic rocks and sedimentary rocks derived from them, is the remaining U-235 and 233 (half-lives some 10^7 or 10^8 million years) and U-238 (half-life 4.5 x 10^9 years), Pu-244 (half-life 82 million years, the longest-lived plutonium isotope), and Th-232 (half-life 2 x 10^11 years) left in them, compared to their final decay products, mostly Pb-208, 207, 206, and a small amount of Bi-209. The latter metals do not occur normally in granitic rocks other than as radioactive decay products, and the intermediate decay products are very short-lived by comparison. Because of the mode of origin of such heavy radioactive elements in supernova explosions, they would have been originally present in roughly equal amounts. About half the original U-238 is found to be left, dating Earth as about 4.6 x 10^9 million years old, while nearly all the original Th-232 is still present undecayed; but only very small (but significant) amounts remain of U-235 (and 233) and Pu-244 (which has gone through about 55 half-lives). Granitic rocks also contain the rare-earth metals, several of which have long-lived alpha-emitting isotopes, and their remaining amounts and decay products tell the same story.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 08:42


When you conduct a scientific experiment you must have a control in order to conduct the experiment properly. This means you have to recreate the same experiment in identical conditions accept the variable you are testing. The earth is ever changing and you have no control in your experiment. Ice sheets shift. Radio active element levels vary ect. ect. there is no way to recreate the atmosphere of the earth in the past it is completely impossible. The oldest way we have to accurately see the levels of radio active elements in the earths atmosphere is in trees since they are the oldest living organisms on the planet. Once something dies your scientific experiments become invalid. The only remote proof that the universe is very old is by measuring the distances of stars from our location using the physics of light, and I am skeptical on that as well. This topic is all about propaganda and certain groups of people try to use this topic to push their agenda. Whether you are religious or a secular humanist neither of them have 100% proof.




[Edited on 14-7-2009 by tom haggen]




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
vulture
Forum Gatekeeper
*****




Posts: 3330
Registered: 25-5-2002
Location: France
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 09:16


Quote:

using the physics of light, and I am skeptical on that as well


You must be getting pretty desperate. You are skeptical on the physics of light? Better pray your eyesight doesn't deteriorate, or you might need glasses, which are, after all, based on the pseudoscience of light. You do realize that the very way by which you are posting your denial here depends on the physics of light? Fiber optics?

Let me ask you something: Assume you had cancer, would you undergo radiotherapy if it could cure you?

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by vulture]

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by vulture]




One shouldn't accept or resort to the mutilation of science to appease the mentally impaired.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 09:32


Well every one assumes that stars are really far away because of their distance of light years away from us. Claiming that this must mean the universe is billions of years old is false. Whose to say that the big bang didn't travel faster than the speed of light? Also im on wireless internet right now :P

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by tom haggen]




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
Polverone
Now celebrating 21 years of madness
*********




Posts: 3186
Registered: 19-5-2002
Location: The Sunny Pacific Northwest
Member Is Offline

Mood: Waiting for spring

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 09:53


Isochron dating neatly gets around the varying levels of radioactive elements problem. It uses multiple minerals in the same rock to calibrate the decay measurements. JohnWW earlier posted examples of the technique but the page I've linked explains it at greater length.

The only way to reconcile a young earth with isochron dating is to assume that elements had different chemical behaviors in the past, or that radioactive decay happened more rapidly in the past. There's no empirical evidence that chemical properties or radioactive half-lives change over time, so retreating to this position is no better than solipsism. There's no proof that God didn't create the universe a few thousand years ago and doctor all the physical evidence to make it look 6 orders of magnitude older, but only in the same way that there is no proof that your brain wasn't created by the robots of the Matrix an hour ago and implanted with a lifetime of false memories.




PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
View user's profile Visit user's homepage View All Posts By User
hissingnoise
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 3940
Registered: 26-12-2002
Member Is Offline

Mood: Pulverulescent!

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 09:57


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
Well every one assumes that stars are really far away because of their distance of light years away from us. Claiming that this must mean the universe is billions of years old is false.

So you'll deny everything that appears to be at odds with creationism?
You're prepared to say that all modern physics and astronomy is a lie because it seems to deny the existence of a Super Being. . .
Seriously tom, you're close to "flat-earth territory" on this one.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
AgentOrange
Harmless
*




Posts: 3
Registered: 14-7-2009
Member Is Offline

Mood: Godless

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 10:54


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
Radioisotope dating is completely flawed. The only way radioisotope dating would be accurate is if you assumed that the level of radio active isotopes that you are using to date things with have remained at a constant level in the earth's atmosphere indefinitely. To assume we know what the composition of the earth's atmosphere was even 50,000 years ago is complete rubish. I have no proof that the earth and the universe are less than 7,000 thousand years old, I'm simply saying that theres no proof that the universe and the earth are billions of years old. Using geometry and the physics of light to guess how far away stars are, to prove how old the universe is, cannot be trusted either. People can't prove how long stars have been in exsistence by measuring there distance from us. If you have no idea how something came into exsistance, there's no way you can prove how long it has exsisted for. For all you know a magical smurf who can fly on a surf board made it all appear. The dating of the universe and the earth is a complete pseudoscience and has no more scientific credibility than the nazi racial sciences.

[Edit Ramiel: Godwin's law just turned the argument over to the blue team! reductio ad Hitlerum, you just lost the game]

[Edited on 13-7-2009 by tom haggen]

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by Ramiel]


For someone who is a member of a science forum, you sure don't seem to have much knowledge of (or faith in) the scientific process....
View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 12:39


Im just saying something doesn't seem right about estimating the age of the universe because we can see stars from billions of light years away. as for using rocks to date things with. You may know how long it takes for those elements to decay but you dont know when it started decaying.

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by tom haggen]




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
AgentOrange
Harmless
*




Posts: 3
Registered: 14-7-2009
Member Is Offline

Mood: Godless

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 13:32


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
You may know how long it takes for those elements to decay but you dont know when it started decaying.

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by tom haggen]


Hmmmmmmm :(

I have to say Tom, you don't really sound like you know what you're talking about.

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by AgentOrange]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
not_important
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 14:14


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
... You may know how long it takes for those elements to decay but you dont know when it started decaying.

[Edited on 14-7-2009 by tom haggen]


You still seem to be confusing C14 dating with other types or radiodating. C-14, Be-10, and H-3 (tritium) are produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays, and dating techniques are based on direct measurements of the isotope's activity. C-14 is used with organic materials, H-3 with ground water as its short half life of 12&1/3 years allows determination of how long ago water was in the form of precipitation. Be-10 is used for some geological dating of surface soils.

But most radioisotope dating does measure how long ago the mineral containing the isotope was formed. For example, uranium is trapped in zircon during the mineral's formation, but lead does not fit into the crystal structure and is rejected. A newly formed zircon crystal will contain U-235 and U-238 in proportion to their concentrations in the surrounds, but only the tiniest traces of lead.

U-235 eventually decays to Pb-207, while U-238 decays to Pb-106. By measuring the amounts of all 4 isotopes the time elapsed since the formation of the zircon can be determined. When the uranium isotopes were formed doesn't matter, as the measurement is based on the time when they were trapped in the forming zircon crystal. The absolute amount of uranium is not used as the direct clock reading, but rather the U-235/Pb-207 and U-238/Pb-106 ratios. The two clocks also allow for a cross checking that compensates for any loss of decay-formed lead from the zircon.

Other pairs used are Sm-147/Nd-143, and Rb-87/Sr-87; the latter is not as precise with errors on the order of 1% to 2%.

Fission track dating can be used to determine the time since the mineral was last heated to a few hundred degrees C or higher. Similar to that is thermoluminescence dating, with a reset typically around 400 C. Errors from resets will result in lower (younger) readings than actual ages.

The Al-26/Mg-26 is normally used to date relative ages of mineral formation within a few million years of isotope formation. But it can also be used to set a minimum age of the Solar System: the ratio of Al and Mg isotopes in chondrules in meteorites tells us that the sample must be older than 10 half lifes of Al-26, because we can't detect any Al-26 but there was some there when the minerals were formed. As Al-26 has a half life of 720 thousand years, the chondrules must be more than 7 million years old.

Now if by "when it started decaying" you are implying that currently unstable isotopes were stable - not decaying - at one time, then you're challenging the same theories that also have to do with how the computer you use and the optoelectronic devices used in fiber optic networks operate. Say those theories are wrong, and you also are saying that those quantum devices work differently than the way we think they do, the theories that have been used to create new types of devices based on predictions of those theories.

To break radiodecay without also breaking quantum devices is no simple task, to claim the theories are wrong you must supply not only a new theory for radiodecay but also for all the other effects covered by the present theories.

Note that radioisotopes being more stable in the past would lead to materials dating younger than they are, not older. For them to appear older than they are radioactive decay would have to be faster in the past. Consider how for the oldest rocks dated - around 4,5 billion years, to actually be only say 10 thousand years old, a ratio of nearly 6 orders of magnitude, how much faster would the decay rates have to have been. Then consider how much faster the energy release would have been, and the amount of radioisotopes present in the Earth's crust and how much more would have been at the starting point in time of the rapid decay. Now think about the release of heat that means, and the much higher background radiation level that would result. And the same problems to quantum theories as above apply, breaking radiodecay also messes up a lot of other stuff.


View user's profile View All Posts By User
497
National Hazard
****




Posts: 778
Registered: 6-10-2007
Member Is Offline

Mood: HSbF6

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 17:16


not_important, sadly, I think you're wasting your (virtual) breath with that. He has clearly demonstrated that he will not or cannot even consider what you're saying is possible.. Trying to reason further is useless in my opinion. Even the best of evidence will be do nothing to convince someone who won't even give it a chance...
View user's profile View All Posts By User
Vogelzang
Banned





Posts: 662
Registered: 26-4-2008
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 17:22


The Pope accepts the Big Bang theory, or was that the last Pope.
View user's profile View All Posts By User
JohnWW
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 14-7-2009 at 17:47


Quote: Originally posted by Vogelzang  
The Pope accepts the Big Bang theory, or was that the last Pope.

Since the Vatican Conference of 1870 (during which God expressed his displeasure with the Catholic Church by afflicting Rome with raging thunderstorms and lightning), Popes have claimed to be infallible, when speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith or morals, on the basis of the promises that Christ made to the infant Church. However, it is not clear whether this includes matters of science and technology, which are fields in which no Pope has ever had qualifications (or in commerce/business subjects or law, for that matter).

But in reality, who in his right mind takes seriously the Pope's ex cathedra pronouncements on matters like contraception, abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc., which date only from around the 1960s? Especially after the Catholic Church persisted for so long, until the 17th century, with its doctrine that the Sun and stars and all the planets revolved around Earth, on pain of being burnt at the stake.

[Edited on 15-7-09 by JohnWW]
View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 15-7-2009 at 10:32


your explanation with the zircon crystal is still lacking a controll. You can't duplicate the earths atmosphere X amount of years ago to see how the mechanism for creating that crystal happened. The earth is not a laboratory figure it out.

[Edited on 15-7-2009 by tom haggen]




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
UnintentionalChaos
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 1454
Registered: 9-12-2006
Location: Mars
Member Is Offline

Mood: Nucleophilic

[*] posted on 15-7-2009 at 11:16


Quote: Originally posted by tom haggen  
your explanation with the zircon crystal is still lacking a controll. You can't duplicate the earths atmosphere X amount of years ago to see how the mechanism for creating that crystal happened. The earth is not a laboratory figure it out.

[Edited on 15-7-2009 by tom haggen]


I think you're confusing carbon dating with radioactive isotope dating. Nothing in a zircon crystal has anything to do with the atmosphere.

The idea is that zircon crystals are extremely resilient to being destroyed and often contain small amounts of uranium and thorium, which are radioactive and decay into lead at a known, fixed rate. This lead becomes trapped in the crystal. Zircon does not contain any appreciable amount of lead upon formation because the crystal structure excludes it due to ion size and charge. This fact cannot change. Therefore, lead found in zircon can be assumed to be entirely from the decay of uranium and thorium. By examining the ratios of specific isotopes of lead to specific isotopes of uranium, the amount of time the crystal has existed can be calculated.

As far as elements go, the earth is a more or less closed system (small contributions from meteors and such over time), so the technique is theoretically sound. There are natural processes that can decrease the lead content to some degree and throw the results off, but in the big scheme of things, nothing could possibly throw them off in ways that would validate a young earth.

Take 5 minutes ang google what you're talking about before you continue to make an ass out of yourself.

[Edited on 7-15-09 by UnintentionalChaos]




Department of Redundancy Department - Now with paperwork!

'In organic synthesis, we call decomposition products "crap", however this is not a IUPAC approved nomenclature.' -Nicodem
View user's profile View All Posts By User
not_important
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 3873
Registered: 21-7-2006
Member Is Offline

Mood: No Mood

[*] posted on 15-7-2009 at 11:58


The atmosphere has nothing to do with it(*), zircon forms from a melt or under conditions of high pressure and temperature in near melt conditions; these have been duplicated today and continue to exist within the Earth.

Zircon is its own control, as it excludes Pb during crystal formation the only lead within it comes from the decay of uranium trapped within the zircon structure (which has a strong affinity for uranium). The differing decay rates of the 2 uranium isotopes means we are measuring two clock, which gives an internal check. The actual amount of uranium isn't critical, so long as it is within a range set by detectability on the low end and excessive modification of the zircon structure on the high end, this is a rather wide range.

The presence of external lead, not formed by radiodecay of uranium, can be tested for by measuring the amount of Pb-204. Using the lead isotope rations from lead in galen, which excludes uranium from its structure, allows you to find the background ratios of Pb-204/206/207. This lets you correct for lead contamination of the zicron, alternatively you can use micro analysis to locate and exclude the regions of contamination, or just select crack-free zircons as contaminants are generally found lining cracks in the crystals.

Note that zircon can also have fission track dating performed on it, giving a lower bound to the age - the time since the zircon was last heated hot enough to anneal existing fission track damage. The uranium/lead age should be no less than the fission track age.


(*)Unless you are suggesting that the Earth's atmosphere was hot and dense enough 7000 years ago to dissolve appreciable amounts of ZrSiO4. And even then it still works, it's just that little uranium would have decayed in that short of time. If you had bothered to look up the chemistry of ZrSiO4, you would have found that atmospheric conditions extreme enough to impact zircon formation would have been rather tough on most other minerals and rocks, and utterly destructive to life. We do not live in the atmosphere of a star, nor within a hot gas giant; suggesting that the Earth was such a short time ago is indicative of something regarding your reasoning.

View user's profile View All Posts By User
tom haggen
Hazard to Others
***




Posts: 488
Registered: 29-11-2003
Location: PNW
Member Is Offline

Mood: a better mood

[*] posted on 21-2-2010 at 22:13


alright turns out i was getting in over my head on this topic but im still not convinced and too lazy to do the research so i guess you guys win at this point. also i have to upload a picture so i can use the hyperlink to post it on my camaro website i belong to now so dont mind the pic



sciencemadness is not a general purpose image hosting site

[Edited on 2-22-2010 by Polverone]

cars.gif - 21kB




N/A
View user's profile View All Posts By User This user has MSN Messenger
IrC
International Hazard
*****




Posts: 2710
Registered: 7-3-2005
Location: Eureka
Member Is Offline

Mood: Discovering

[*] posted on 21-2-2010 at 22:51


While unsure how this information aids in understanding fusion I can add if you read the bible in its ancient languages understanding colloquialisms and figures of speech as used at the time of writing you learn the earth is very old. So old in fact billions of years is not unthinkable. In point of fact there is no evidence in the writings giving a hint of an idea the earth is not as old as science today believes. Score one for science and zero for reading the book in English and taking thoughts out of context or completely wrong (or both). And then trying to use these fallacies not written in the Word to prove something every child who has ever explored in a rock quarry knows cannot possibly be true.




"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" Richard Feynman
View user's profile View All Posts By User
 Pages:  1  2  

  Go To Top