Do they decay to the 'beat' of just one 'drum'?

[Ant Sinclair]

We know that there are countless radioactive decays taking place at any one time on the Earth and elswhere, Have there ever been any studies to determine if they are 'beating'(decaying) in time together?

Is there a common clock to all these decays?

[swansont]

Yes, there have been studies. They measure the half-lives, which are different, so no, they don't have a common clock.

[Ant Sinclair]

Yes, there have been studies. They measure the half-lives, which are different, so no, they don't have a common clock.

Thanks for Your reply swansont, I appreciate there have been countless studies on the different decays, but has any body 'timed' say two, different type of decays to an accurate device like the atomic clocks to see if they somehow have a common 'beat', even if their decay times are different?

If there have been could You kindly link to the study/studies?

[Klaynos]

There have been studies. Decays are random there is no beat.

[Ant Sinclair]

There have been studies. Decays are random there is no beat.

Thanks for Your reply Klaynos, I have looked for material on the questions I have asked above, could You please link Me to such studies?

[studiot]

Are you thinking about something like the master clock used in most logic and digital circuitry?

 

One of the difficulties circuit designers have had to overcome is the time it takes for the master clock pulse to reach different parts of the circuit.

If a particular clock pulse is meant to trigger two (or more) different events in different parts of the circuit at the same time then this transit time can become important.

 

The way conventional circuitry overcomes this is by holding back the next event until all the processes have finished.

 

This effect could be observed in radioactive decay time constants in different locations if there was a master clock.

 

So far as I am aware no such time constant jitter has ever been observed, and many laboratories have performed these measurements of huge timescales and distances as far as Man has been able to reach.

[Ant Sinclair]

Are you thinking about something like the master clock used in most logic and digital circuitry?

 

One of the difficulties circuit designers have had to overcome is the time it takes for the master clock pulse to reach different parts of the circuit.

If a particular clock pulse is meant to trigger two (or more) different events in different parts of the circuit at the same time then this transit time can become important.

 

The way conventional circuitry overcomes this is by holding back the next event until all the processes have finished.

 

This effect could be observed in radioactive decay time constants in different locations if there was a master clock.

 

So far as I am aware no such time constant jitter has ever been observed, and many laboratories have performed these measurements of huge timescales and distances as far as Man has been able to reach.

Thanks for Your post Studiot, in the early days on the coal fired power stations I was often fault finding on electronic boards before We got into the throw away and replace with new culture, We used Dymac Turbovisory sytems to measure eccentricity etc on the 300Tonne shafts spinning at 3000rpm, the master boards would fail now and again and the first part of the circuit I would test was the Master Clock.

Iam now in the process of searching for research into the OPs questions to try and shine Light on this matter.

[studiot]

I am not sure which questions you are researching or if you understood my comments about the role of master clocks in circuit design.

 

A further thought occurs, that has no parallel in circuit design.

 

 

Some of the radioactivity released as a result of decay is in the form of gamma radiation, ie electromagnetic.

 

Again if there was such a thing as a master drum, I would expect evidence that these rays are in phase since they start at the same time.

[StringJunky]

An enquiring thought: if radioactivity is truly random then there wouldn't be unique half-lives for each element; the decay is only random between two temporal points, the positions of which depend on the element.

[Prometheus]

But isn't the unique half-life a description of what would happen in the limit? For any finite amount of an element it would only approximate this limit, with closer approximations with larger amounts.

 

Presumably the decay rates of different elements have been measured and found to follow a Poisson process, just with different parameters. How would this mean they are not random?

Edited August 22, 2015 by Prometheus

[StringJunky]

But isn't the unique half-life a description of what would happen in the limit? For any finite amount of an element it would only approximate this limit, with closer approximations with larger amounts.

The configuration of nucleons must set the bounds of decay probability, I suppose.

 

[imatfaal]

An enquiring thought: if radioactivity is truly random then there wouldn't be unique half-lives for each element; the decay is only random between two temporal points, the positions of which depend on the element.

 

You can get "different randoms" quite easily that are truly random. Get a set of old ad&d dice (d4,6,8,10,20) - all ideal - each roll is completely random and unconnected with previous or future rolls; but the number of rolls before you would expect (with a confidence) that any particular die rolls a 1 is different and calculable for each.

 

Or if you have different handfuls of normal 6 sided dice and you are looking for probability of not rolling any sixes. Roll a dozen d6s and roll two dozen - a bit of maths will tell you two different expectation values even though each die is the same and random

[StringJunky]

I just had this thought, prompted by the OP, about unpredictability within predictable limits which is not something I'd given any thought to before. This is statistics I suppose.

Edited August 22, 2015 by StringJunky

[Prometheus]

On a related issue i have often wondered how we can know certain physical processes are 'truly' random.

 

For instance, we can measure some decay rates. Then we could generate some pseudo-random numbers with the same parameter found for the decay rates. Now give these data sets to someone unaware of how they were generated - how would they be able to tell one is a random process the other a deterministic, albeit complex, process?

 

As far as i can tell all we could say is that both processes seem to behave in a way which we can model as a particular random process.

[imatfaal]

On a related issue i have often wondered how we can know certain physical processes are 'truly' random.

 

For instance, we can measure some decay rates. Then we could generate some pseudo-random numbers with the same parameter found for the decay rates. Now give these data sets to someone unaware of how they were generated - how would they be able to tell one is a random process the other a deterministic, albeit complex, process?

 

As far as i can tell all we could say is that both processes seem to behave in a way which we can model as a particular random process.

 

 

No just presented with just certain information the "clean-room" analysers would not be able to tell one was random and other generated. But the same would apply to any tranche of digits of pi and a sufficciently complex equations. However give your analysts the task to tell the difference between pi (rather than a subsection of it) and any generating algorithm and they will. Similarly - with elemental samples to test the analysts would soon spot the random from the generated

[studiot]

On a related issue i have often wondered how we can know certain physical processes are 'truly' random.

 

For instance, we can measure some decay rates. Then we could generate some pseudo-random numbers with the same parameter found for the decay rates. Now give these data sets to someone unaware of how they were generated - how would they be able to tell one is a random process the other a deterministic, albeit complex, process?

 

As far as i can tell all we could say is that both processes seem to behave in a way which we can model as a particular random process.

 

That rather depends on whether you regard the property of randomness as purely residing in the number (the mathematician's view) or whether the method of generation plays any part (the physicist's view).

 

For example is the number 7 random?

Edited August 22, 2015 by studiot

[swansont]

Thanks for Your reply swansont, I appreciate there have been countless studies on the different decays, but has any body 'timed' say two, different type of decays to an accurate device like the atomic clocks to see if they somehow have a common 'beat', even if their decay times are different?

 

What do you mean by a "common beat"?

 

The decay times are not the same. They cover a spread from shorter than a microsecond to more than a billion years.

[Ant Sinclair]

What do you mean by a "common beat"?

 

If say You put two of Your atomic clocks side by side, both identical set-ups, and You recorded their 'sound'(atomic-vibration), would both sets of caesium perform in tempo?

[Sensei]

If say You put two of Your atomic clocks side by side, both identical set-ups, and You recorded their 'sound'(atomic-vibration), would both sets of caesium perform in tempo?

 

Are you aware of Hafele–Keating experiment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment

 

If they're both at rest, in same FoR, clocks are synchronized.

[Ant Sinclair]

Are you aware of HafeleKeating experiment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HafeleKeating_experiment

 

If they're both at rest, in same FoR, clocks are synchronized.

Thanks for Your reply Sensei that was a nice link to a nice experiment demonstrating time dilation, I've often been in awe of how experimental physicists devise methods to test theory, quite a few times in optical experiments!

Sensei are decays constant or do they modulate in intensity?

[StringJunky]

Thanks for Your reply Sensei that was a nice link to a nice experiment demonstrating time dilation, I've often been in awe of how experimental physicists devise methods to test theory, quite a few times in optical experiments!

Sensei are decays constant or do they modulate in intensity?

Decays are always random but the more atoms there are, the more constant the measured rate of total decay is.

[Sensei]

Sensei are decays constant or do they modulate in intensity?

 

Quantity of decays is dropping exponentially, as quantity of unstable particles is gone.

 

ps. You can learn how to calculate decay energy reading article in my signature.

There is also graph with decays per second as function of time, OpenOffice SpreadSheet project to download:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/83245-a-question-on-radioactive-decay/?p=806204

Edited August 23, 2015 by Sensei

[swansont]

If say You put two of Your atomic clocks side by side, both identical set-ups, and You recorded their 'sound'(atomic-vibration), would both sets of caesium perform in tempo?

 

No. They would random walk away from each other.

 

That doesn't explain what you mean by decays having a common beat. At least clocks have the same nominal frequency, but you've already acknowledged that decays have different half-lives. So what do you mean by this?

 

 

Are you aware of Hafele–Keating experiment?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment

 

If they're both at rest, in same FoR, clocks are synchronized.

 

Ideal clocks do but real clocks don't stay that way. White frequency noise means a random walk in phase, so real clocks do not stay synchronized.

[Sensei]

 

Ideal clocks do but real clocks don't stay that way. White frequency noise means a random walk in phase, so real clocks do not stay synchronized.

 

Yes, I know.

But remember we're talking to non-scientist.

If you want to be so much precise, then give him amount of introduced error:

"In March 2015 the NIST-F2 caesium fountain clock reported a u_B of 1.5 × 10⁻¹⁶. At this frequency uncertainty, the NIST-F2 is expected to neither gain nor lose a second in more than 211 million (211 × 10⁶) years."

(from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock )

Edited August 23, 2015 by Sensei

[Prometheus]

 

That rather depends on whether you regard the property of randomness as purely residing in the number (the mathematician's view) or whether the method of generation plays any part (the physicist's view).

 

For example is the number 7 random?

 

 

I take your point, but still the latter example doesn't sit well with me. I just can't imagine what an experiment to test for 'randomness' in a physical process would look like. I understand such experiments do exist though - i'll be studying some QM next year, so i'll wait until then to explore further.