In reply to Edmund Storms's message of Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:31:01 -0700: Hi, [snip] > Well Robin, as you eventually concluded, rapid collapse of a local >superconducting site would not supply the necessary energy to make a >neutron because local conservation of energy would still have to occur. > Energy might be concentrated in a few individual electrons, but the >total number of electrons having this energy would be small, hence the >total available energy would also be small. Frankly, I do not see how >sufficient energy can be concentrated in a region of space occupied by a >proton to allow it to be converted into a neutron. As far as I know, no >demonstrated example of such conversion has been published. Do you know >of any demonstrated example of a proton being converted to a neutron >using an electron of any size? [snip] All electron capture reactions are examples of this, including the rare case of electron capture by two protons in the Sun, leading to D formation.
However to be fair, these all result in more kinetic energy being released than consumed, while the reaction above consumes more kinetic energy than it releases. To find an example of this, I expect one would have to look at particle beam experiments. Mind you, the number of conversions is also limited by the fact that it's a weak force mediated interaction, so it's going to be much more rare than I previously thought. You win, I think I'll drop this. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://users.bigpond.net.au/rvanspaa/ Competition provides the motivation, Cooperation provides the means.
