Re: i dont like irrationals

From: Christopher (night_at_fas.harvard.edu)
Date: 10/10/04 

Date: 10 Oct 2004 08:17:53 -0700

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote...
> "Keckman" <keckman@welho.com> wrote in sci.math:
> >The matererial i have been composed burned about 6 billion years ago
> >in supernova. It is the only place in this universum where heavier
> >atoms are made of from less heavier.
>
> Think again.
>
> The source of heat in our sun is the creation of helium atoms
> (atomic mass 4) from hydrogen atoms (atomic mass 1). There are
> heavier atoms also being made, but I believe that process is much
> less common in our star.
>
> The process of fusion is also the source of the energy of a
> "hydrogen bomb", which is essentially a little bit of a star not
> supernova) shining briefly.
>
> If you had said supernovas were the only place in the universe where
> elements heavier than _iron_ were made from less heavy elements,
> then I believe you'd be right. But ordinary stars make the elements
> up through iron quite well.

Not quite. Ordinary, low-mass stars like the sun only get up through
oxygen. High-mass stars do get up through iron from ordinary fusion,
before going supernova. And then everything heavier than iron comes
from the supernova itself.

Keckman was largely correct in saying that heavier elements making up
Earth come from supernovae; although low-mass stars get up through
oxygen, it gets locked up in white dwarfs. Only supernovae DISTRIBUTE
the heavy elements throughout space.

But you're right: the claim "[A supernova] is the only place in this
universum where heavier atoms are made of from less heavier" is
definitely wrong, even neglecting H-bombs, particle accelerators, and
big bang nucleosynthesis.

But why count your spiritual birth from when your atoms were formed?
The subatomic particles that make you up have been around since the
first 10 microseconds.

Relevant Pages

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