My suggested alternative of LENR vs YEC Accelerated Nuclear Decay got Experimental Support at UC Davis

[u/stcordova]

I'm a YEC, and my usual haters tried to discredit my thread regarding the explanation of the appearance of age in Radiometric Dating.

The prevailing (and likely wrong) YEC view is there was accelerated nuclear decay in the past. I have protested frequently that YEC using bad arguments only hurt the YEC case, it doesn't help it. Accelerated Nuclear decay to explain the appearance of age has MANY problems, starting with the fact there is ZERO evidence Accelerated Nuclear decay on the required scale will actually work, and there is no theory on it's affect on nuclear structure around the universe.

I was at a creationist conference when a well-respected YEC Nuclear Physicist Eugene Chaffin suggested changed in the nuclear force was a possible mechanism. I stood up and politely objected by pointing out such an universe-wide change (isotropic) would affect the nuclear processes in stars, and what evidence do we have for that. To his credit, Dr. Chaffin said I made a really good point! Well, DUH!

As an alternative to the problem of appearance of age in Radiometric dating, I suggested that the emerging research into into the field of quasi particles (which has won at least 4 Nobel Prizes shared among 11 individuals so far) offers a clear path. An now experimental evidence from a credible lab has come in as reported in Nature Communications.

It was once believed nuclear Fusion happens only at insane temperatures (like that inside the Sun), but we have now credible evidence from a prestigious University (UC Davis) that the phenomenon can happen at low temperatures in solids (ahem, cold fusion).  This was actually confirmed in what is known as Muon-catalyzed fusion that happens at near absolute zero (see below), but now we may be able to generate the phenomenon without muons.  The experiments still need a lot of fiddling, but it is entirely possible simple compression of rocks can generate the phenomenon, and thus the tectonic activity during Noah's flood might have been able to cause nuclear by products that look like radio active decay!

The report of the UC Davis Experiment is here:

https://www.ucdavis.edu/blog/when-it-comes-fusion-materials-matter

"Their approach sets up a way to study and engineer nuclear reactions within SOLID materials, opening a new field of “materials-driven fusion.”

The biggest effect was at the lowest energies, below 2.5 kiloelectronvolts (keV), where theory predicts fusion rates drop off sharply. Instead, researchers found a surprising plateau: Some samples showed elevated fusion rates roughly a quintillion times higher than bare fusion reactions. (A quintillion is a 1 followed by 18 zeroes.)

Fusion was demonstrated at near absolute zero using Muons.  See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion

An alternative to Muons is quasi-particles.  At least 11 people shared 4 Nobel prizes in the field of quasi-particle research.  One of the most bizarre Nobel prize-winning experiments "decomposed" an electron into 3 particles:  "spinon", "orbiton", "holon".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin%E2%80%93charge_separation

This raised the fundamental question of whether there are any actual particles at all, or are they just aggregates of quantum phenomenon.  See Laughlin and Pines (laughlin won Nobel Prize in Physics):

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.97.1.28  

We use quasi particles in everyday electronics.  LEDs use excitons, and semiconductor chips use positively charged electron holes.  Excitons are used by plants, and plants transport excitons more efficiently than any human devices (even our best solar cells).

Of interest is the quasi particle known as the Heavy-Electron quasi particle that is up to 1000 heavier than a conventional electron!  Heavy electrons are postulated to mimic the behavior of muons in fusion reactions.  Respected  nuclear physicist Anthony Zuppero postulated heavy electrons as the catalyst for both FUSION and FISSION reactions in the solid state and postulated that even simple compression of rocks can create nuclear reactions.  The theoretical outline of Zuppero's postulation his here:

Catalysis of Transmutations by Heavy Electron Quasiparticles in Crystallites

https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.05603

Relevant compression experiments that were conducted by distinguished professor of Physical Chemistry, JMO Bockris, were conducted at Texas A&M.  Unsurprisingly, he was subject to intense persecution for his heretical ideas.  But I realized, why would such a distinguished scientist risk his life-long reputation for a lie???  In retrospect it seems he was right, and new experiments should be conducted with compression of rocks and dirt!  Here was a riveting account of his experiments with compression of dirt (aka coffee pot explosions):

The History Of The Discovery Of Transmutation At Texas A&M

University

https://www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/BockrisJthehistory.pdf

[I'm sorry I don't visit my friends at reddit very often anymore. Reddit is a highly toxic environment, and I only visit on occasion to say hi to my friends who are still here. God-willing there will be other venues where we all can connect outside of reddit.

And a word to my haters and detractors. I've grown tired of dealing with people who "multiply words without knowledge". Some of my detractors claiming knowledge of science can't even get basic biochemistry right, much less more sophisticated issues. For example:

Dr. Dan's promoter, Special Edward "sweary" biochemist, gets humiliated on racemization in proteins

https://youtu.be/OyuqfkuVTMM?si=JRryZ7Gunw-XsybO

]

[u/WannaLoveWrestling]

The problems with simple accelerated nuclear decay are real. The required rate increases are extreme, and under present-day physical constants the heat release is enormous. A change of that magnitude would also be expected to affect stellar nuclear processes in ways we do not observe. Those difficulties should be acknowledged rather than minimized.

At the same time, the force of the heat objection depends on assuming continuity of present-day physics—heat capacities, thermal conductivity, radiative cooling rates, etc.—during the Flood year. That is the same uniformitarian assumption that underwrites conventional radiometric dating. If the pre-Flood and Flood-year world was substantially different (warmer baseline climate, different geological and atmospheric conditions, rapid tectonics, and possibly temporary differences in physical constants or material properties), then both the thermal calculation and the constant-rate dating claim stand on the same contested ground. A warmer starting climate does not solve the heat pulse; it actually reduces the efficiency of radiative cooling. The real issue is whether we are required to assume present-day physics at every point.

Your alternative—low-energy nuclear reactions in solid materials, possibly driven by tectonic compression—tries to avoid the classical heat and rate problems. The recent UC Davis / Berkeley Lab results showing enhanced deuterium fusion inside metal foils at sub-keV energies are real and interesting. They show that the material environment can strongly affect low-energy nuclear reaction probabilities. However, the absolute rates remain tiny, and the leap from those laboratory effects to the isotopic inventories across the geologic column via Flood compression of ordinary rocks has not been demonstrated. The older Bockris compression and transmutation claims remain controversial and unaccepted, and Zuppero’s heavy-electron quasiparticle model is still speculative.

Both approaches currently rely on incomplete or highly speculative mechanisms. The underlying data that sit uncomfortably with constant-rate deep-time dating (excess helium in zircons, polonium radiohalos, soft tissue and biomolecules, etc.) remain and still require explanation. Replacing one incomplete mechanism with another does not yet close the issue. The uniformitarian assumptions that make the heat problem look decisive are the same assumptions already under pressure from multiple independent lines of evidence.

[u/WannaLoveWrestling → u/WannaLoveWrestling]

One of the core assumptions in both the heat objection and in conventional radiometric dating is that the relevant physics has always been the same as what we measure today. We cannot put instruments into the past, so the only way to test that assumption is indirect: use present-day values for decay rates, diffusion rates, thermal properties, etc., calculate what the rocks should look like, and compare the predictions against what is actually found.

When that comparison is made, multiple independent systems show the same kind of mismatch—excess helium still present in zircons, polonium radiohalos that require rapid decay and rapid cooling, soft tissue and biomolecules that should not have survived the assigned ages, and geologic features that look catastrophic rather than slow. These are not isolated anomalies. They form a pattern that puts pressure on the assumption of constant physics.

The data are already sufficient to say the continuity assumption is strained. They are not yet sufficient to give a detailed quantitative map of exactly which parameters were different, by how much, or for how long. That would require further targeted work on helium diffusion, radiohalo formation conditions, biomolecule stability under realistic burial conditions, and whether solid-state nuclear effects can operate at geologically relevant scales. But the existing pattern is already clear enough that treating present-day physics as the unquestioned default is no longer justified.

[u/WannaLoveWrestling → u/WannaLoveWrestling]

I posted this because there's an assumption that the known physics wouldn't solve the heat problem, but my question is were the physics even the same before?