U232 is highly dangerous stuff. It has an alpha activity that is 10 times that of U238 which is itself also very dangerous.
If U232 gets into the air as particles, the particles pop around in the air like little jets propelled by its own intense alpha activity and it tends to break apart into smaller particles. It is very deadly stuff. The experimenter must have taken great pains to contain the U232 to protect his life. No doubt, the experiment must have been sealed. Also, the alpha activity would blow off U232 from any type of fixation on the gold particles. This intense alpha activity would also keep it suspended in solution. It also pumps out prodigious levels of gamma radiation. On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 2:47 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > In reply to Axil Axil's message of Sun, 28 Apr 2013 18:02:15 -0400: > Hi, > [snip] > >In this experiment, the half-life of 232U in the induced Nanophotonic > >electrical field induced within the influence of the laser field is *5 > >milliseconds instead of 69 years.* > > > > That should be 5 micro-seconds, not milli-seconds. > > However I can't find any indication in the paper of the actual area of the > beam, > nor of the actual fraction of the volume of the fluid that was exposed to > it. > However if we assume that only a fraction of the volume was actually > exposed, > while also assuming that the activity of the whole volume was reduced, > then the > effect may actually be even larger. > > There are however a couple of potential systematic errors. > > 1) We don't know whether the experiment was sealed or open. If open, then > there > is the possibility that minute particles were ejected into the air, > resulting in > a simple loss of material in the experiment. > > 2) A second possible source of error is binding of the U to the surface of > the > Gold nano-particles, which then sank to the bottom, which would also > affect the > concentration remaining in solution. This would be easy to determine, by > measuring the activity of any residue in the bottom of the container. > > The authors of the paper should be queried on both counts. > Regards, > > Robin van Spaandonk > > http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html > >
