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welder — Disintegration Constant
Published: 2006-06-06 13:38:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 927; Favourites: 11; Downloads: 147
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Description
The term disintegration constant, in the strict sense, is a proportionality constant in the mathematical equation that describes the rate of radioactive decay. All radioactive decay can be expressed quite well with statistics…which is pretty interesting, if you think about the fact that the process of radioactive decay at the individual level is a spontaneous disintegration of an atomic nucleus. Each disintegration event itself is random. Again, we see this notion of tiny random events at the smallest level taking a definable and predictable form in large scales.What’s even more interesting about radioactive decay itself is that it’s happening all the time, all around you. Cinder blocks, for instance, are radioactive. Bananas contain trace amounts of the radionuclide potassium-40. Even human beings themselves have radioactive isotopes in their bodies from birth. Radioactivity is everywhere. (Fortunately for us, the cells in our bodies are able to repair the small amounts of damage caused by the radioactivity we’re exposed to on a daily basis).
It can be said that in a broader sense, on a long enough timescale, almost everything disintegrates. With the exception of the fundamental particles of electrons, protons, photons, and neutrinos, all particles are subject to decay. It may not happen quickly, but it most likely will happen.
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Comments: 22
Anything that is bounded by observation to be a discrete object "decays", literally running of out existential battery power (charged up during its formation) to hold itself together, or maybe, its perceived components run out of power to stay together in the observed configuration. Maybe, the remainder of the universe outside of the imaginary boundary containing the object is lowering the potential of that object to stay together, or exciting its components out of their observed states. Maybe, the boundary around that object lasts only as long as the observer itself is engaged in the observation.
What if, at the largest scale possible, all of the universe is one homogeneous thing that doesn't really even have a form which to lose in decay? How we (as periscopes coming out of the same background that is being observed) divide this "universe" into forms with our perception may be the only time that the constitution of an object "matters". Maybe, these objects are always in transit and we are mistakenly objectifying them (in other words, "waves" might be hitting our perception screens and we are observing only their flat/solid "shadows" in planes/spaces that we inhabit as "particles"). It could also be that we are wrong to squeeze higher-dimensional particles into lower-dimensional waves - that we are not seeing enough of a "wave" all at once in our space or time to see that it could be "solid"/"persistent" in a view that spans different directions in time.
In "reverse time", disintegration can appear to be assembly. Assuming that there are only two possible directions to time (that given any possible configuration of all discrete objects in the (deterministic) universe, there is only one acceptable "prior" state and only one possible "subsequent" state), if we look using a bidirectional periscope that bends around both directions of time, we would observe assembly/disintegration of any object as only a localized intersection of its constituents - much like streaks that run alongside each other for a limited distance. Widening the periscope to the "width" of the universe, we would just see only the periscope taking up all of time and space - such a thing that lasts all of time and takes up all of space can be only the universe itself (which, in its entirety, doesn't "decay" because there is no time outside of it ).
If anything, the "cosmic refresh rate" for whatever "matter pixels" we all agree on relative to our carbon-centric existence is the "disintegration constant", or even "reconstitution constant". It could be that even in our current view of time going from past to future, instead of disintegration, the true events taking place are assemblies - that new states of belonging are pulling "components" from older objects into fresh positions. For example, some sunlight as electromagnetic (EM) radiation packed in some (particle) form into carbohydrates within photosynthetic plants may have been always (a wave) on a trajectory towards an animal's metabolic cycle to be converted into kinetic energy dissipated as thermal energy (which itself might not be "lost" or "spent", because this EM radiation might eventually get pulled into an event that "organizes" it to revert its potential; it's said that photons (the quanta of EM radiation) get absorbed by stars: medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/… ).
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Nice series.
One nitpick, though: over significantly long timescales (10^1,000,000 years or more), even elementary particles such as electrons will decay even further into quarks, gluons, etc.
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Hmm. Proton decay is a theoretical idea but there is no evidence for it, all attempts to observe it so far have failed. I think electron decay and photon decay are less plausible than proton decay. I don't doubt that on such a ridiculously long timescale it could happen. But I'm not sure it's quite fair to make a claim like that as a certainty.
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We do know that matter-antimatter contact leads to annihilation into pure energy form. Maybe this is what happens between a proton and its antiparticle at some point in time that is either the starting or ending of the universe (or an intersection of time-space arcs within a continually recycling universe, possibly at a black hole where things are supposed to be smushed into singularity or, as I would imagine, to be piped out to a "white hole"/"local bang"). Wow, I know what that last bit sounds like, but Physics with me here. Oh wait, that still sounds... acoustic.
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Hydrogen nucleus "decay" may actually take all of time (or it is maintained as a constant in our universe from Big Bang creation to Big Crunch recycling into a new Big Bang with possibly different conditions/constants). Maybe the decay of the proton is actually the scale that we carbon-based beings use as a relative measure for the "fundamental unit" of decay; that we determine the "stability" of other particles by how the proton holds up to "the test of time".
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Once again, the inevitability of Physics astounds me.
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Nah, not now...I used to be (well, I used to be one in training anyways 
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Great light! And the image goes very well with the text - or other way round
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Heh...it took me way too long to set up that lighting, so thanks for noticing!
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i think i have that physics book. the concept is very
interesting, kinda compelling, y'know, "everything is
bound to erode."
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Disintegration constant was an odd name, I've always heard decay constant. What book IS that ?
Also, as far as I know, everything below Carbon (or thereabouts) is stable, since from there it's uphill energywhise to the lighter elements.
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Yeah, when we think of stable elements those normally aren't what we say would undergo radioactive decay. I'm thinking more along the timeline of the age of the universe....pretty much the only things guaranteed not to decay are elementary particles.
The book? Can't remember off the top of my head, some generic title lie "Introduction to Modern Physics or something." But yeah, decay constant is the more common usage. Doesn't sound quite as good for artistic purposes though.
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it will take a bit to read the rest of the book
nice idea.
as always!
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Great concept
Like the way it's nicely detailed.
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Great use of light, very intriguing.
Also the image goes very well with the text ... it clearly shows you have put some thought in putting together this series.
And it's outrageous it goes so seemingly overlooked
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Yeah, I spent a lot of time on this series. Thanks for noticing
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Well, it clearly shows; you're not just opening a book on any random page, pulling a prop from the kitchen and presto
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This is such an interesting series. The ways you've chosen the represent all of the concepts are fantastic, and the information boxes along with them? Very very fun to read. Great work!
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