Re: directional fission?
- From: tadchem <tadchem@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2008 14:53:30 -0700 (PDT)
On Mar 21, 1:53 pm, heatheris...@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
If 239 Pu is aligned in a magnetic field (having spin 1/2) are the
products of spontaneous fission directional? How about radioactive
decay? If so can fission be made directional?
To date, the only tool we have that can reach through the filled
electron orbitals to directly affect the nucleus of an atom is the
magnetic field.
Atomic nuclei with spin of zero (approximately 1/4 of all known
isotopes) are unaffected by the magnetic field because they themselves
have a zero magnetic moment.
Applying a magnetic field to a nucleus with a permanent magnetic
moment will establish a differential energy for different orientations
relative to the magnetic field. That means some orientations will
have higher or lower energies than others. The nuclei will distribute
themselves among these energy states according to a thermal
distribution law.
Once aligned in the magnetic field the magnetic axis will precess.
The frequency of this precession will vary with the magnetic moment,
the field strength, and the electronic environment of the nucleus.
This is the heart of the phenomenon we call "nuclear magnetic
resonance." The magnetic axis of the nucleus will spin (around the
axis of the field) millions or billions of times a second. This is
the same kind of precession that makes the North Pole of the earth
wander around in a great circle with a radius of 23-1/2 degrees every
25,000 years.
Even if the nuclei were radioactive, will not be possible to get them
all pointing in the same direction at the same time, let alone at the
time they randomly decay. The only way we have right now of making a
large number of nuclei decay at the same time is call a "nuclear
explosion," AKA an atomic bomb.
Tom Davidson
Richmond, VA
.
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