What would you do to speed up a radioactive decay on an element that had a half life of say 1 million years?

Question

Would you just add a catalyst? If so what could be a catalyst for a radioactive decay?

Answer 1

Radioactive decay is a spontaneous process, and involves the nucleus only, and so any chemical catalyst will have no effect as they only affect the electrons.

In essence, decay is more of a physical process rather than chemical.

We could bombard the element with protons/neutrons/alpha/beta radiation to force the atoms to become more unstable and decay faster. This is done in nuclear fission reactors to uranium (half life = 7 x 10^8 yrs!) with neutrons to cause the chain reaction.

Problem is the products are usually radioactive themselves, with long half lives (hence radioactive waste from power stations).

Answer 2

Your outlook is incorrect as to Christianity and the history book. As you say that technology is getting better and better, so is the accuracy of the bible.It stands to reason that people get confused as to scriptural understanding, because they rely on leaders that teach commands of men rather than test for themselves their beliefs. The bible supports many theory's that science proclaims and is in agreement with the earths age, being millions if not billions of years old. you heard wrong as to God creating or recreating the earth. He made it once and he made it to last. The only changes he has ever made is time periods of the species. you have a dinosaur age and then you have the mammal age. people who have a narrow view of creation are called creationist, and as you already know that they don't make an effort to look for answers because they are quite happy with their little world. The whole point of this discussion is not to prove anyone wrong, but to suggest that looking deeper into scripture might provide the answers that make the most sense. For example: 3500 years ago the experts taught that the earth was flat, "The Flat Earth Theory" However Isaiah said it was round. Isa. 40:22 As far as all the dating methods you list, I am blown away, and will search some of them out, however I do know a couple of them, Argon, Carbon, Carbon being accurate up to 70 thousand years, argon depends on a steady state theory, at least I think?

Answer 3

The decay rate of radioactive material is a constant. You can check that by looking at the formula that defines it (e^kt), k is a constant ratio of decay, t is the specific time. If decay rate could be altered by a catalyse or temperature then C14 or U238 dating would not be accurate.

Answer 4

From what I know of RAM from hanging around with physisists, you can't do anything to change the decay rate...its constant.

Answer 5

You cannot change the half-life; not with a catalyst, high temperature, or high pressure. It is set foever.r

Answer 6

There is no way to speed up the rate of decay.

Answer 7

I'd accelerate everything but that element to near the speed of light. Einstein's theory of relativity would state that the element would have aged must faster than everything else!

TADA!!!

Answer 8

I don't know. Maybe nuke it. That would take care of it's half life. oops. This isn't polls and surveys, is it?