Big bang and supernova analogies ...

‘Dr Edward Teller remarked recently that the origin of the earth was somewhat like the explosion of the atomic bomb…’

– Dr Harold C. Urey, The Planets: Their Origin and Development, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1952, p. ix.

‘It seems that similarities do exist between the processes of formation of single particles from nuclear explosions and formation of the solar system from the debris of a supernova explosion. We may be able to learn much more about the origin of the earth, by further investigating the process of radioactive fallout from the nuclear weapons tests.’

– Dr P.K. Kuroda, ‘Radioactive Fallout in Astronomical Settings: Plutonium-244 in the Early Environment of the Solar System,’ Radionuclides in the Environment (Dr Edward C. Freiling, Symposium Chairman), Advances in Chemistry Series No. 93, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1970.

The fractionation of fallout particles (which have a core of refractory material - i.e., high melting point material - surrounded by material with a lower melting point which has condensed at a later time in the fireball history), and their spherical nature, is similar in a way to planets. Obviously there are many differences.

One of the main ones is that a typical fallout particle, 1 millimetre in diameter or smaller, is drawn into a spherical shape by electrical attractive forces called surface tension - similar to the reason why water forms droplets. But planets are held together by gravity, not surface tension. The main difference is that surface tension acts on the outer surface area which in turn causes internal compression.

Gravity, however, is not due to a surface compression but instead is mediated through the void between fundamental particles in atoms by exchange radiation which does not recognise macroscopic surfaces, but only interacts with the subnuclear particles associated with the elementary units of mass. The radial contraction of the earth's radius by gravity, as predicted by general relativity, is 1.5 mm. [This contraction of distance hasn't been measured directly, but the corresponding contraction or rather 'dilation' of time has been accurately measured by atomic clocks which have been carried to various altitudes (where gravity is weaker) in aircraft. Spacetime tells us that where distance is contracted, so is time.]

This contraction is not caused by a material pressure carried through the atoms of the earth, but is instead due to the gravity-causing exchange radiation of gravity which is carried through the void (nearly 100% of atomic volume is void). Hence the contraction is independent of the chemical nature of the earth. (Similarly, the contraction of moving bodies is caused by the same exchange radiation effect, and so is independent of the material's composition.)

Since most of the mass of atoms is associated with the fields of gluons and virtual particles surrounding quarks, these are the gravity-affected parts of atoms, not the electrons or quarks themselves.

The mass of a nucleon is typically 938 MeV, compared to just 0.511 MeV for an electron and 5 MeV for a quark. Hence the actual charges of matter aren't associated with much of the mass of material. Almost all the mass comes from the massive mediators of the strong force fields between quarks in nucleons, and between nucleons in nuclei heavier than hydrogen. (In the well-tested and empirically validated Standard Model, charges like fermions don't have mass at all; the entire mass is provided by a vacuum 'Higgs field'. The exact nature of the such a field is not predicted, although some constraints on its range of properties are evident.)

Getting back to the topic at the top of this post, every type of force is nuclear in a broad sense. Gravity is basically nuclear because it depends on mass, which is concentrated in the exchange radiation between quarks in the nuclei of atoms. (If gravity was like electric charge, it would depend presumably on macroscopic surface area, which is not the case: in a charged metal sphere, the net electric charge involved in long range forces resides on the surface of the sphere not throughout its volume.) Electromagnetism in the form of the Yang Mills exchange-radiation U(1) symmetry has been unified with the weak nuclear force isospin symmetry SU(2) to produce the electroweak portion of the standard model, SU(2) x U(1), which has 4 gauge bosons that cause forces: the massive charged W+ and W- particles, the uncharged but massive Z particle, and the uncharged and light velocity (no 'rest mass') force causing photon.

The reason why only one (the photon) of the four electroweak gauge bosons operates outside nuclear distances is simply that the other gauge bosons are attenuated by the vacuum at low energy. At high energy collisions (ie, near the charge core, assuming the particles have are able to hit hard enough to break through the vacuum shield) there is attenuation and the weak nucelar force is experienced.

The quark is like a steel cored, rubber coated ball. Throw it gently (low energy) and all the interactions are soft, because the rubber shield is able to prevent the steel core from experiencing any direct interaction. But if you hit nuclear matter together very hard, the rubber is less effective at insulating the core and metallic interactions occur. It is really almost as simple as this; this is not a completely fraudulent analogy. Vacuum polarisation and shielding cause much of the 'rubber' type insulation. There is however some additional complexity which I've recently described on another blog, here, but as stated there it is not as complex as the supersymmetry formulation of the Standard Model.

The strong nuclear force is described in the Standard Model by colour rotation symmetry, SU(3). It has 8 massive gluon mediators, twice as many as the electroweak force. The observed effective colour charge of quarks falls off with increasing collision energy, while the observed electromagnetic force increases with collision energy. These facts suggest that energy may be conserved between all types of gauge boson; the fall of the coupling for the strong force is accompanied by an increase in the coupling for the electromagnetic force.

Conservation of energy of gauge bosons would suggest that when the polarised vacuum is completely broken down (at short ranges/high energies) and the electromagnetic force is maximised, the strong nuclear force will have fallen to the same value (not less than that value). Hence, including conservation of energy for the sum of gauge bosons of the fields automatically does what SUSY (supersymmetry) sets out to do, but instead of inventing unobserved imaginary superpartners like SUSY, we are utilising including a well-established physical principle (conservation of mass-energy) to do the same job.

Of the four usually distinguished elementary forces of the universe (the strong nuclear, weak nuclear, electromagnetic and gravitational), some 50% at first glance appear to be nuclear in origin (i.e., the strong and the weak forces). However, as we have shown, electromagnetism has been unified with electromagnetism - and this electroweak unification predicted the masses of the W+, W-, and Z massive weak gauge bosons discovered at CERN in 1983, so it is hard real science. Hence on this basis there are three fundamental force categories (electroweak, strong, and gravity) of which near 67% are nuclear (electroweak ad strong). When you include the fact that gravity depends essentially on the nuclear mass between quarks as discussed above, you then see that 100% of the fundamental forces of the universe are intimately nuclear in origin.

Back to the nuclear weapons and supernova analogy. Successive neutron captures in the explosion create very heavy elements like uranium which make the Earth radioactive today. See the previous post on this blog for the evidence for the 15 natural nuclear reactors in Gabon which occurred on Earth 1.7 billion years ago emitting 100 kW for 150 million years, when the ratio of U-235 to U-238 in uranium was higher than today (U-235 has the shorter half-life), and evidence of how nature contained the vast amount of intensely radioactive fission products for two billion years in perfect safety without any fancy concrete domes or expensive burial schemes!

More on the Oklo natural nuclear fission reactor in a comment on Louise Riofrio's blog here.

Radioactivity lingering in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

'Long-lived neutron activation products,Co-60, Eu-152, Eu-154 and Cl-36 ... are still detectable today [in Hiroshima and Nagasaki] using modern analytical techniques...' - Nezahat Hunter and Monty W Charles, An update on the discrepancy between calculated and measured neutron-induced radioactivity levels in Hiroshima, J. Radiol. Prot. , v. 22 (2002), pp. 345-356.

In a previous post I mentioned the long-term effects of neutron radiation:

'In a controlled sample of 36,500 survivors, 89 people got leukemia over a 40 year period, above the number in the unexposed control group. (Published in Radiation Research volume 146:1-27, 1996.)

'Over 40 years, in 36,500 survivors monitored, there were 176 leukemia deaths which is 89 more than the control (unexposed) group got naturally. There were 4,687 other cancer deaths, but that was merely 339 above the number in the control (unexposed) group, so this is statistically a much smaller rise than the leukemia result.'Natural leukemia rates, which are very low in any case, were increased by 51 % in the irradiated survivors, but other cancers were merely increased by just 7 %.

'Adding all the cancers together, the total was 4,863 cancers (mainly natural), which is just 428 more than the unexposed control group. Hence, the total increase over the natural cancer rate was 9 %, spread over 40 years.'

All the 89 leukemia victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (leukemia is important since it is generally considered the worst type of cancer, the hardest to treat effectively), were caused by the initial nuclear radiation which lasted for a few seconds. The residual doses were completely trivial by comparison. But people don't accept this without seeing the evidence that air bursts don't produce significant residual radioactivity on the Earth. So this post presents the evidence.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still radioactive! Why aren't they evacuated? Well, the chief problem with detecting the nuclear bomb radiation using conventional equipment for the past 60 years has been the problem that it is swamped with something called natural background radiation, which stems from the supernova that created the matter - including potassium-40 which 'pollutes' the oceans, uranium which 'pollutes' the land, and many other nuclides like radon-222 which 'pollutes' the air naturally - found on a planet called Earth some 4,540 million years ago, not to mention the continuing short-lived induced activity in the atmosphere caused by nuclear radiation from the sun and from other nuclear reactors in space.

Should I even mention natural nuclear reactors that 1,700 million years ago emitted an average of 100 kW of power over 150 million years, and safely stored the resulting massive quantities of 'hazardous' fission products in the uranium ore seams of Gabon, Africa: 'Fifteen natural fission reactors have been found in three different ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. These are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors. ... The radioactive remains of natural nuclear fission chain reactions that happened 1.7 billion years ago in Gabon, West Africa, never moved far beyond their place of origin. They remain contained in the sedimentary rocks that kept them from being dissolved or spread by groundwater.' Just notice the lies from the anti-nuclear lobby which thinks radioactive waste is somehow unnatural and 'polluting nature' and that 'nobody knows how to safely store the waste for 24,000 years because the 'nuclear age' is just over 60 years old.' Also notice that the nuclear industry has gone from spewing out pathetic pro-nuclear propaganda to 'working with' these nutters, and cannot present to the public the facts about radiation without either being condescending and patronising with authority, or on the other hand being so over-technical that nobody wants to listen. Those people are all 'professional wallies', like string theorists. More on Earth's natural nuclear reactors here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Tadashi Hashizume and others in a paper published in Health Physics, v. 17, (1969), p. 761, found that the total neutron-induced gamma dose (from Na-24 and Mn-56) at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 80 and 30 R, respectively (falling to 18% of this at 0.5 km from ground zero, and to 0.07% at 1 km). This is measured data, you simply measure the remaining activity in the soil from the few very long-lived nuclides, then you irradiate the soil sample with neutrons in a laboratory to replicate that activity, and you can then measure the short-term Na-24 and Mn-56 hazards accurately.

'The residual radiation levels in Hiroshima and Nagasaki about the time of occupation troop arrival are fairly well-documented. As discussed in more detail subsequently in Section 3, a scientific group organized by the Manhattan Engineer District conducted radiological surveys in Nagasaki from 20 September to 6 October 1945, and in Hiroshima from 3 to 7 October 1945. Later surveys were conducted in Nagasaki (15-27 October 1945) and Hiroshima (1-2 November 1945) by a team from the Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI). The NMRI surveys were supplemented by measurements made by Japanese scientists at even later dates.' - DNATR805512F.

That report contains residual radiation contours for neutron-induced activity (concentrated on ground zero, as in all air bursts) and fallout (trivial deposits occurring some distance downwind). For Hiroshima, the measured neutron-induced activity gamma dose rate of 0.1 mR/hr on 3-7 October 1945 had an average radius of 230 m from ground zero. This does not include natural background radiation (generally 0.01-0.02 mR/hr). Fallout produced a small 'hotspot' of 0.045 mR/hr (not including natural background) at a distance of 3.6 km west of ground zero (downwind) in Hiroshima, measured on 3-7 October 1945.

In Nagasaki, although the bomb had a higher yield the high explosive around the core absorbed more of the neutrons so the neutron induced activity was less extensive: 0.03 mR/hr out to an average radius of 210 m from ground zero was measured in surveys between 21 September and 4 October 1945 (not including natural background). However, the fallout was more heavy downwind from Nagasaki than from Hiroshima; the fallout 2.6 km east (downwind) of ground zero in Nagasaki that these times was about 1 mR/hr (not including natural background).

Because the neutron induced activity peaks something like 6-7 cm deep in the soil, there is a lot of self-shielding by the topsoil which reduces the dose rate, that must be taken into account in converting from the activity in the soil to the dose rates in the air above it.

From a previous post on this blog:

Above: typical composition of representative soil types for calculating neutron induced activity, given in Philip J. Dolan's originally secret manual Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, DNA-EM-1, U.S. Department of Defense, Chapter 5, Nuclear Radiation Phenomena, August 1981 revision.Above: decay rates of the different soil neutron induced activities, given in Philip J. Dolan's originally secret manual Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, DNA-EM-1, U.S. Department of Defense, Chapter 5, Nuclear Radiation Phenomena, August 1981 revision.
Above: neutron induced activity dose rates, decay rates, and doses for Hiroshima and Nagasaki air bursts where fallout was negligible at ground zero ("DS02" indicates 2002 dosimetry system, the latest data).

'Some related field manuals with data are publically available, however, like chapters 1 and 7 of FM 3-3-1 also on line here as a better quality PDF file (this reproduces the table of neutron induced activities in soil from TM 23-200 and DNA-EM-1). Note that the various FM 3-3-1 neutron induced activity illustrations of the dose rates for a given weapon and soil type are contradictory and useless; Dolan's manual makes it clear that the gamma dose rate at 1 hour after burst due to neutron induced activity can vary by a factor of 4,540 depending on the amounts of manganese and sodium in the soil.

'The minimum rate corresponds to clean Pensacola sand (99.982% pure silicate) which is 0.001% sodium, 0% manganese, and 46.65% silicon by mass. For such almost pure silicate sand, silicon-31 becomes a significant gamma contributor although it is trivial in all other soils (containing higher manganese or soldium levels). Because there is so little sodium-24 in this soil, Si-31 stands out initially (at 1 hour after burst, 52% of the gamma dose rate would be due to Si-31 with a 2.62 hr half life, and 48% to Na-24 with a 15.0 hr half life).

'The worst danger, 4,540 times more intense, would come from Hawaiian lava clay soil, since that is 2.94% manganese by mass resulting in a massive amount of Mn-56 (2.58 hr half life), although no other significant gamma emitters. The hazards from most soils and also from sea water fall between these two extremes. The dose rate variations due to the type of soil far outweigh possible variations due to the design of the nuclear weapon used. Hence a reasonable prediction is possible provided that the target is known. The peak neutron induced activity generally occurs at a depth of 6-7 cm so there is considerable self-shielding by the soil which makes the hazard far less than you would naively expect if assuming the activity is in the top surface layer of soil.'