In reply to Eric Walker's message of Tue, 1 Dec 2015 16:11:27 -0600: Hi, [snip] >I came upon the suggestion because it provides a nice explanation for >results like those of Iwamura as being successive alpha captures. In his >case, only two or three captures are needed to get from strontium to >molybdenum, cesium to praseodymium, or barium to samarium. Successive >alpha captures seem like a reasonable hypothesis if there are lots of alpha >particles being emitted under induced decay.
For elements heavier than Fe/Ni, alpha capture is endothermic, which implies that it could only happen if fast alphas are available. Furthermore, only a tiny fraction of fast alphas would actually undergo a reaction. IMO a more reasonable reaction involves the addition of a small cluster of H/D atoms. Such a reaction would be exothermic, and may well lead to the transmutation results found. Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
