Probably, Robin, but the relatively recent discovery of the 65Fe isomer (which likely has been lurking in the universe for a long time) makes me wonder if other long-lived isomers have escaped attention, and written off as statistical errors in mass measurements.
Coaxing 1 gram of 65Fe to ground state would release considerable energy. Lots of molecular examples of long-lived metastable systems exist (e.g., ammonia NH3, and other chiral molecules). I am guessing that the decay products would be very hard to calculate - especially in condensed matter. I really think this explanation is quite unlikely, but why leave any stone unturned? > In reply to Danny Ross Lunsford's message of Fri, 4 Nov 2011 20:33:53 > -0700 > (PDT): > Hi, > [snip] >>This is sort of what seems most natural to me. Something is happening on >> either side of NI62, and it gets into a cyclic state - once in a while by >> the magic of QM it overshoots and you get copper, or undershoots and you >> get iron. But most of the time it bounces back and forth. Some >> oscillatory state of the nucleus is being excited and it doesn't know >> which side of the binding-energy-per-nucleon to be on. > > On either side of Ni62 lie Cu62 and Co62. The energy difference between > Cu62 and > Ni62 is over 4 MeV. That between Ni62 & Co62 is over 5 MeV. IMO there > isn't > going to be any oscillation to speak of. > > Regards, > > Robin van Spaandonk > > http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html > > >
