Can anyone out there reading this relate/understand this level of thought.? ? I can't but need to do something about this debate that was started on the internet. Blast! > About alpha decay: he's right that it's a helium >nucleus - two protons,two neutrons, reducing the >atomic number from 115 to 113. 113 would >presumably have a much shorter half-life. A >half-life of 1000 years before entering a chain >reaction that reduces 115 very quickly to much > smaller atoms means that the half life of the >atom is only 1000 years. > When measuring the half-life of an atom, you >take the shortest decay mode,not the longest. Mr. Versailles statement is only partially true, There are many different halflives in a typical unstable nucleus. An Alpha, (+,-)Beta, Gamma, Fission. Even though one half life may be shorter than the other, it does not mean that is the absolute decay route, it has a probability of decaying through any of the other decay routes. When particles shift states within an atomic nucleus they emit energy, and change state, resulting in a new half life. An analogy to this is when an electron in orbit about a nucleus changes state, it will emit energy in the form of a photon. And I DID quote the shortest decay mode...1000 years!. instead of Retuculi 115 Alpha half-life 8.2E+52 Years!. As a result of all this you must take ALL decay probabilities into account,not just the'shortest'. When all the decay probabilities are graphed out, you end up with which is called a 'Probability Distribution'.

I'd be happy to discuss this with you further. My fee starts at $60 an hour.

why do you need to do something? do you dislike one of these physics people?

Not really, except that one resorted to what I'd call rudeness in the line of dabating. The debating has been sent to me in order to be forwarded to the other person. All started with an educated comment in reply to my sending the following URL to a long-time internet friend. How was I to know that they are both heavily into Physics . . . . http://www2.aros.net/~lambo/reticulium115/reticulium.htm

can't help you there, pico. good luck, though. rudeness is not to be tolerated, there seems to be a lot of it going around these days. i am not exempt.

Just as a remark, the following is quoted from the party that I thought was offended : "Don't sweat it. I was hardly charitable myself. And I get much worse directly (did I ever tell you about the white supremacist who wrote to complain that the Julie Brown song "'Cause I'm A Blonde" was anti-white?), especially from people who take exception to the song Plastic Jesus. Because my lyrics are linked from the Jesus Dance site, people think I wrote that site, too, and therefore I'm totally evil. A little playful physics fencing is nothing to worry about"

Oh, re: your question, help is on your way. I don't even have my bachelor's degree yet, and I don't know what it has to do with synchrotron light(i.e. an electron emitting a photon when you fuck with it), but I work at a synchrotron, and I sent the link to someone who can help.

The only part that made any sense to me was "probability distribution," by which I'm assuming they mean a normal distribution, otherwise known as the bell curve. No help at all, I know.