On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 7:49 AM, Jojo Jaro <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Ed calculates that the energy of formation for a neutron is 0.76MeV. This > energy must be concentrated from a "sea" of energy less than 0.1 eV. > Not necessarily. That's only one of several approaches. Suppose you have a crack that serves as an antenna, along the lines Lou has suggested. Now add a soup of free electrons in the vicinity of the crack (a plasmon). Now bring in a cosmic ray or a gamma ray from an earlier event. The high-energy incoming photon does something funny with the crack and the plasmon, and perhaps as with a lightning bolt or a staple gun, a free proton in the area is zapped (with a loud crackle, one imagines). There you have all the energy needed to create a neutron. No need for a magical localization of energy from a low-energy environment. Eric
