Centre of the sun, fusing away Hydrogen to Helium to ..... Carbon etc
Now all those very actice particles don't collide 12 at a time to produce the Carbon nucleus ( 6 protons plus 6 neutrons). Well, not often enough to produce you and me anyway. So there is a cycle/ladder with progression up to that. Now it turns out that a rate limiting step for this process relies on the near resonance ( ie. closeness ) of energy levels of one type of nucleus to the next. This way it is energetically favourable for the synthetic reaction to proceed. The value of these energy levels in turn can be derived from calculations involving a number called the fine structure constant - a basic number in the universe.
Now one line of thinking get's awfully anthropocentric ( cue Twilight Zone music ), oooh.... if that number was any different, even by a little bit, the reactions would miss their resonance, Carbon wouldn't be made, and you and I wouldn't be here to talk about it. How finely tuned the fundamentals of our Universe are to our existence, what are the odd's on that .......blah, blah.
So what? Well those nuclear levels don't in fact quite co-incide. The kinetic energy of the reactants provide the extra to bridge the gap and now it is energetically favourable. So now oooh.... if the temperature of the Sun's core was even slightly different then we wouldn't be here etc....... Wrong. If the synthesis doesn't proceed then the reactants stack up, energy radiates/convects/whatever from the core, gravity is less resisted ....... ultimately causing the core temperature ( aka average kinetic energy ) to rise until the gap is closed. Think of a water weir with a creek trickling in the top end. If you raise the level of the overflow bar you will reduce the downstream outflow - but only until the level of the dam rises to match.
In addition, fiddling with the value of the fine structure constant has much the same effect.
My point? We're clever until the truth turns up.....
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Great insight all. I take no offense to anything anyone said. This is why I posted here to see what answers I would get with regard to this theory. Who better to ask than people more educated then myself.
I followed very little of what you said until your last point.
Sorry about my waffling. The idea is that sufficient production of Carbon in the core of a star is going to happen anyway, across a broad range of conditions. Thus we don't need to get too excited about, or read anything special into, the particular details of how it's actually made in the current instance.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Oh my. Perhaps we could ask one of the escaped, holdout nazi's to fly one of their Saucers up from the secret buried base in the antarctic to have a look.
;)
George
Did you mean the fly to the Sun or the Moon? We have already been to the moon. May I suggest the Sun, they can land at night to avoid burning up.
George
Did you mean the fly to the Sun or the Moon? We have already been to the moon. May I suggest the Sun, they can land at night to avoid burning up.
Why does most of the literature claim Iron 56 is the most tightly bound nucleus when Nickel 62 has higher binding energy per nucleon?
Iron 56, 26 proton and 30 neutrons
(26*1.007825+30*1.008665-55.9349)/56=0.0094375
Nickel 62, 28 protons and 32 neutrons
(28*1.007825+34*1.008665-61.9283)/62=0.0094421
All of the numbers come from the CRC handbook of chemistry & physics.
George
Did you mean the fly to the Sun or the Moon? We have already been to the moon. May I suggest the Sun, they can land at night to avoid burning up.
Mark,
Thank you for reminding me of the joke I heard many years ago, about the new entry in the "space race", who ambitiously announced they had decided to bypass intermediate destinations (moon, Mars, etc) to land a man on the sun. When it was pointed out that such an attempt was impossible due to the extremely high temps, the speaker confidently replied "Oh, we've solved that problem. We're going to land at night". Went something like that anyway.
Regards,
Michael
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
RE: LOL! ..... University
)
I can give a more subtle one if you like....
Centre of the sun, fusing away Hydrogen to Helium to ..... Carbon etc
Now all those very actice particles don't collide 12 at a time to produce the Carbon nucleus ( 6 protons plus 6 neutrons). Well, not often enough to produce you and me anyway. So there is a cycle/ladder with progression up to that. Now it turns out that a rate limiting step for this process relies on the near resonance ( ie. closeness ) of energy levels of one type of nucleus to the next. This way it is energetically favourable for the synthetic reaction to proceed. The value of these energy levels in turn can be derived from calculations involving a number called the fine structure constant - a basic number in the universe.
Now one line of thinking get's awfully anthropocentric ( cue Twilight Zone music ), oooh.... if that number was any different, even by a little bit, the reactions would miss their resonance, Carbon wouldn't be made, and you and I wouldn't be here to talk about it. How finely tuned the fundamentals of our Universe are to our existence, what are the odd's on that .......blah, blah.
So what? Well those nuclear levels don't in fact quite co-incide. The kinetic energy of the reactants provide the extra to bridge the gap and now it is energetically favourable. So now oooh.... if the temperature of the Sun's core was even slightly different then we wouldn't be here etc....... Wrong. If the synthesis doesn't proceed then the reactants stack up, energy radiates/convects/whatever from the core, gravity is less resisted ....... ultimately causing the core temperature ( aka average kinetic energy ) to rise until the gap is closed. Think of a water weir with a creek trickling in the top end. If you raise the level of the overflow bar you will reduce the downstream outflow - but only until the level of the dam rises to match.
In addition, fiddling with the value of the fine structure constant has much the same effect.
My point? We're clever until the truth turns up.....
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
Great insight all. I take no
)
Great insight all. I take no offense to anything anyone said. This is why I posted here to see what answers I would get with regard to this theory. Who better to ask than people more educated then myself.
RE: My point? We're
)
I followed very little of what you said until your last point.
RE: I followed very little
)
Sorry about my waffling. The idea is that sufficient production of Carbon in the core of a star is going to happen anyway, across a broad range of conditions. Thus we don't need to get too excited about, or read anything special into, the particular details of how it's actually made in the current instance.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
ECR Maybe this link will help
)
ECR
Maybe this link will help Nucleosynthesis
Oh my. Perhaps we could ask
)
Oh my. Perhaps we could ask one of the escaped, holdout nazi's to fly one of their Saucers up from the secret buried base in the antarctic to have a look.
;)
George Did you mean the fly
)
George
Did you mean the fly to the Sun or the Moon? We have already been to the moon. May I suggest the Sun, they can land at night to avoid burning up.
RE: George Did you mean the
)
(snicker)
Why does most of the
)
Why does most of the literature claim Iron 56 is the most tightly bound nucleus when Nickel 62 has higher binding energy per nucleon?
Iron 56, 26 proton and 30 neutrons
(26*1.007825+30*1.008665-55.9349)/56=0.0094375
Nickel 62, 28 protons and 32 neutrons
(28*1.007825+34*1.008665-61.9283)/62=0.0094421
All of the numbers come from the CRC handbook of chemistry & physics.
RE: George Did you mean the
)
Mark,
Thank you for reminding me of the joke I heard many years ago, about the new entry in the "space race", who ambitiously announced they had decided to bypass intermediate destinations (moon, Mars, etc) to land a man on the sun. When it was pointed out that such an attempt was impossible due to the extremely high temps, the speaker confidently replied "Oh, we've solved that problem. We're going to land at night". Went something like that anyway.
Regards,
Michael
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK