oh well, so much for all those hours of memorizing the atomic weights of all the elements, and thier isotopes. You are correct U235 is, in fact, the fissionable isotope.
Also, you are correct, higher temperatures are associated with fusion. And, in fact, as far as we can tell, temperature does not affect the probability of a decay event. So, my inclusion of temperature acting to mitigate the fission process, was indeed erroneous. The fission rate is controlled via neutron capture techniques to inhibit the chain reaction.
However, the original observation was an interesting one, which was this: Is there a maximum temperature?
if temperature is about motion
and motion is speed
and highest speed is that of light
with absolute 0 the coldest temperature, no motion
is highest temperature that of a mass at speed of light ?
So, after reviewing the physics of nuclear events, I must acquiesce to your point, regarding the question of extreme temperature, as being one of metaphysics. We don't know if higher and higher temperatures (energies) would create more and more massive particles. Or, if the physics, at some extreme temperature, causes subatomic particles constrained to larger and larger nuclei, to break down.
This brings us back to Pons and Fleischman. I have not been able to find any info regarding the mechanism of transition from a quasi-stable element to an atom which spontaneously undergoes a decay
event. It seems plausible to me that there is an activation event, which is characterized by a "activated transition state", and, if such is the case, we should be able to catalyze that event (ie. cause the event to occur under specific controlled conditions).
Thanks for an interesting sidetrack from TA studies. |
