Below is the online edition of In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood,
by Dr. Walt Brown.
Copyright © Center for Scientific Creation. All rights reserved.
Click here to order the hardbound 8th edition (2008) and other material.
Theories for the Origin of Earth’s Radioactivity
The Hydroplate Theory. In the centuries before the flood, supercritical water (SCW) in the subterranean chamber steadily dissolved the more soluble minerals in the rock directly above and below the chamber. [Pages 120–122 explain SCW and its extreme dissolving ability.] Thin spongelike channels, filled with high-pressure SCW, steadily grew up into the increasingly porous chamber roof and down into the chamber floor.
The flood began when pressure increases from tidal pumping in the subterranean chamber ruptured the weakening granite crust. As water escaped violently upward through the globe-encircling rupture, pillars had to support more of the crust’s weight, because the subterranean water supported less. Pillars were tapered downward like icicles, so they crushed in stages, beginning at their tips. With each collapse and with each water-hammer cycle, the crust fluttered like a flag held horizontally in a strong wind. Each downward “flutter” rippled through the earth’s crust and powerfully slammed what remained of pillars against the subterranean chamber floor. [See “Water Hammers and Flutter Produced Gigantic Waves” on page 186.]
For weeks, compression-tension cycles within both the fluttering crust and pounding pillars generated piezoelectric voltages that easily reached granite’s breakdown voltage.81 Therefore, powerful electrical currents discharged repeatedly within the crust, along complex paths of least electrical resistance. [See Figures 182–185.]
|
|
Figure 182: Piezoelectric Effect. Piezo [pea-A-zo] is derived from the Greek “to squeeze” or “to press.” Piezoelectricity is sometimes called pressure electricity. When a nonsymmetric, nonconducting crystal, such as quartz (whose structure is shown above in simplified form) is stretched, a small voltage is generated between opposite faces of the crystal. When the tension (T) changes to compression (C), the voltage changes sign. As the temperature of quartz rises, it deforms more easily, producing a stronger piezoelectric effect. However, once the temperature reaches about 1,063°F (573°C), the piezoelectric effect disappears.79 Quartz is the only common mineral in the earth’s crust that is piezoelectric. Granite contains about 27% quartz by volume. If the myriad of quartz crystals throughout the 10-mile-thick granite crust were partially aligned and cyclically and powerfully stretched and compressed, huge voltages and electric fields would rapidly build up and collapse with each flutter half-cycle. If those fields reached about 9 × 106 volts per meter, electrical resistances within the granite would break down, producing sudden discharges—electrical surges (a plasma) similar to lightning. [See Figures 174 and 184.] Even during some large earthquakes today, this piezoelectric effect in granite generates powerful electrical activity and hundreds of millions of volts.80 [See “Earthquakes and Electricity” on page 343.] Granite pillars, explained on page 452 and in Figure 55 on page 123, were formed in the subterranean water, in part, by an extrusion process. Therefore, quartz crystals in the pillars would have had a preferred orientation. Also, tidal pumping in the subterranean water compressed and stretched the pillars and crust twice a day for centuries. Such “kneading action” before the flood would align these crystals even more (a process called poling), just as adjacent bar magnets become aligned when cyclically magnetized. [See Figure 185.] Each quartz crystal acted like a tiny battery—one among trillions upon trillions. So, as the flood began, the piezoelectric effect within pounding pillars and fluttering granite hydroplates generated immense voltages and electric fields. |
|
|
Figure 183: Fluttering Crust. Many of us have seen films showing earth’s undulating crust during earthquakes. Imagine how magnified those waves would become if the crust, rather than resting on solid rock, were resting on a thick layer of unusually compressible water—SCW. Then imagine how high those waves in the earth’s crust would become if the “ocean” of water below the crust were flowing horizontally with great force and momentum. The crust’s large area—basically the surface area of the earth (200,000,000 square miles)—gave the relatively thin crust great flexibility during the first few weeks of the flood. As the subterranean waters escaped, the crust flapped, like a large flag held horizontally in a high wind. Flutter began as the fountains of the great deep erupted. [See “Water Hammers and Flutter Produced Gigantic Waves” on page 186.] Each time the crust arched downward into the escaping subterranean water, the powerful horizontal flow slammed into the dipping portion of the crust, creating a water hammer that then lifted that part of the crust. Waves rippled through the entire crust at the natural frequencies of the crust, multiplying and reinforcing waves and increasing their amplitudes. Grab a phone book with both hands and arch it upward. The top cover is in tension and the bottom cover is in compression. Similarly, rock in the fluttering crust, shown above, would alternate between tension (T) and compression (C). As explained in Figure 182, huge cyclic voltages would build up and suddenly discharge within the granite crust, because granite contains so much quartz, a piezoelectric mineral. Once granite’s breakdown voltage was reached, electrical current—similar to bolts of lightning—would discharge vertically within the crust. Pillars (not shown) at the base of the crust would become giant electrodes as surges of current cycled through the lower crust, which was honeycombed with tiny pockets of salty (electrically conducting) subterranean water. |
Electrons flowing through solids, liquids, or gases are decelerated and deflected by the electrical charges in the atoms encountered. These decelerations and accelerations of electrical charges bombard atomic nuclei with bremsstrahlung (BREM-stra-lung) radiation which, if energetic enough, generates free neutrons.
Neutrons will be produced in any material struck by the electron beam or bremsstrahlung beam above threshold energies that vary from 10–19 MeV for light nuclei and 4–6 MeV for heavy nuclei.83
|
|
Figure 185: Poling. Poling is an industrial process that steadily aligns piezoelectric crystals so greater voltages can be produced. During the centuries before the flood, tidal stress cycles in the granite crust (tension followed by compression, twice a day) slowly aligned the quartz crystals. (A similar picture, but with arrows and positive and negative signs reversed, could be drawn for the compression half of the cycle.) Over the years, stresses heated the crust to some degree, which accelerated the alignment process. The fact that today so much electrical activity accompanies large earthquakes worldwide shows us that preflood poling was effective. Laboratory tests have also shown that quartz crystals have a degree of alignment in most quartz-rich rocks.82 |
Self-Focusing Z-Pinch
Figure 186: Z-Pinch Discovered. In 1905, lightning struck and radially collapsed part of a hollow, copper lightning rod (shown in this drawing84). Professors J. A. Pollock and S. H. E. Barraclough at the University of Sydney then showed that a strong pinching effect occurs when a powerful electrical current travels along close, parallel paths. Later, Willard H. Bennett provided a more rigorous analysis.85 The closer the paths, the stronger the pinch—and when the current flows through a plasma, the stronger the pinch, the closer the paths. The flow self-focuses. Patents have since been granted for using the Z-pinch to squeeze atomic nuclei together in fusion reactors. In a plasma flow, trillions upon trillions of electrical charges are flowing along a long, narrow path—positive charges in one direction and negative charges (electrons) in the opposite direction. Their mutual electrical repulsions and attractions approximately balance each other. However, the magnetic field created by each moving charge squeezes all charged particles toward the axis of the path, continually narrowing (or Z-pinching) the flow. During the flood, gigantic piezoelectric voltages produced electrical breakdown in the fluttering granite crust, so each long flow channel became self-focused onto its axis. In that flow, nuclei of the different chemical elements that were stripped of some electrons were drawn closer and closer together. Normally, their Coulomb forces would repel each other, but with so many nuclei confined to ever smaller volumes, the Coulomb forces acting on nuclei near the axis of that flow tended to balance each other. Nuclei that collided or nearly collided were then pulled together by the extremely powerful strong force. Fusion occurred, and even superheavy elements formed. Thousands of experiments at the Proton-21 Laboratory demonstrated this phenomenon. Because superheavy elements are so unstable, they quickly fission (split) or decay. Although fusion of nuclei lighter than iron released large amounts of nuclear energy (heat), the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorbed much of the energy of fission and decay. Therefore, staggering amounts of energy (heat) were absorbed in producing heavy elements such as uranium. The more heat produced, the more heavy elements formed. By “cooking” isotopes of uranium, for example, in a “hot plasma brew,” an equilibrium was achieved in the amounts of the various isotopes of uranium produced. |
At electrical breakdown, the energies in the surging electrons were thousands of times greater than 10–19 MeV, so for weeks after the flood began, bremsstrahlung radiation produced a sea of neutrons throughout the crust. Subterranean water absorbed many of these neutrons, converting normal hydrogen (1H) into heavy hydrogen (2H, called deuterium) and normal oxygen (16O) into 18O. Abundant surface water (a huge absorber) protected life.
During the flood, most of this 2H- and 18O-rich subterranean water was swept to the surface where it mixed with surface waters. However, some subterranean water was temporarily trapped within all the mushy mineral deposits, such as salt (NaCl), that had precipitated out of the SCW and collected on the chamber floor during the years before the flood. Today, those mineral deposits are rich in 2H and 18O.87
The Ukrainian experiments described on page 341 show that a high-energy, Z-pinched beam of electrons inside a solid produces superheavy elements that quickly fission into different elements that are typical of those in earth’s crust. Fusion and fission occur simultaneously, each contributing to the other—and to rapid decay. While we cannot be certain what happens inside nuclei under the extreme and unusual conditions of these experiments, or what happened in the earth’s crust during the flood, here are three possibilities:
a. Electron Capture. Electrons that enter nuclei convert some protons to neutrons. (This occurs frequently, and is called electron capture.)
Also, the dense sea of electrons reduces the mutual repulsion (Coulomb force) between the positively charged nuclei, sometimes bringing them close enough for the strong force to pull them together. Fusion results. Even superheavy nuclei form.
b. Shock Collapse.90 Electrical discharges through the crust vaporize rock along very thin, branching paths “drilled” by gigavolts of electricity through extremely compressed rock. Rock along those paths instantly becomes a high-pressure plasma inside thin rock channels. Just as a bolt of lightning expands the surrounding air and produces a clap of thunder, the shock wave generated by the electrical heating suddenly expands the plasma and the surrounding channel walls. As that rock rebounds inward—like a giant, compressed spring that is suddenly released—the rock collapses with enough shock energy to drive (or fuse) nuclei together at various places along the plasma paths. This happens frequently deep in the crust where the rock is already highly compressed.
Superheavy elements quickly form and then fission and decay into such elements as uranium and lead. The heat released propels the plasma and new isotopes along the channels. As the channels contract, flow velocities increase. The charged particles and new elements are transported to sites where minerals are grown, one atom at a time.
c. Z-Pinch. As explained on page 336 and in "Self-Focusing Z-Pinch" on page 350, the path of each electrical charge in a plasma is like a “wire.” All “wires” in a channel are pinched together, but at each instant, pinching forces act only at the points occupied by moving charges, and each force is the sum of the electromagnetic forces produced by all nearby moving charges. Therefore, the closer the “wires,” the greater the self-focusing, pinching force, so the “wires” become even closer, until the strong force merges (fuses) nuclei.
Of these three possible mechanisms, c has the most experimental support. Items a and b should accompany item c.
How Much Energy?
A small part of the nuclear energy absorbed by the subterranean water can be calculated. Our oceans have 1.43 × 1024 grams of water. For every 18 grams of water (1 mole)88 there are 6.022 × 1023 (Avogadro’s number)88 water molecules—each with 2 hydrogen atoms. One out of every 6,400 hydrogen atoms in our oceans is heavy hydrogen (2H or deuterium). Each fast neutron thermalized by water produced at least 1 MeV of heat energy.88 (1 MeV = 1.602 × 10-6 erg)88 A hydrogen atom (1H) that absorbs a fast neutron releases 2.225 MeV of binding energy and becomes deuterium. So, assuming earth had no significant amount of deuterium before the flood, the amount of nuclear energy that was added to the subterranean water over several weeks, just in forming deuterium, was:
This is the energy that would be released by 1,800 trillion 1-megaton hydrogen bombs!89 [See Endnote 4 on page 517.] The crust became an earth-size nuclear engine during the several weeks when this energy was being generated. This is a conservative estimate of the nuclear energy added to the subterranean water, because other products of nuclear fission and decay would have added additional energy, and some water was expelled permanently from earth. Energy was also required to form radioisotopes and, in effect, “lift” them high above the floor of the valley of stability. As mentioned earlier, energy was also absorbed in forming some elements heavier than iron.
The above shows why so much deuterium was in the subterranean chamber. The solar system and stars contain relatively little deuterium—a fragile isotope—while comets and asteroids contain a relatively large amount of deuterium. [See page 285.] The comet chapter, pages 278–308, explains why the water in comets came from the subterranean chamber.
For centuries before the flood, SCW dissolved the more soluble minerals in the chamber’s ceiling and floor. The resulting spongelike openings were then filled with SCW.
During the flood, that pore water provided an enormous surface area for slowing and capturing neutrons and other subatomic particles. Great heat resulted, some becoming earth’s geothermal heat. Simultaneously, electrical discharges “drilled” thin plasma channels within the crust, producing other nuclear reactions and additional heat.
For weeks, all this heat expanded and further pressurized the SCW in the spongelike channels, which were connected to the subterranean chamber. Therefore, higher than normal pressures in the subterranean chamber continuously accelerated the escaping subterranean water, much like a water gun. [See Figure 187.] Velocities in the expanding fountains of the great deep reached at least 32 miles per second , thereby launching the material that became comets, asteroids, and meteoroids! [See page 292.]
|
|
Figure 187: Water Gun. My granddaughter Laney demonstrates, admittedly in a simplified form, how vast amounts of nuclear energy steadily accelerated the fountains of the great deep during the early weeks of the flood. Laney adds energy by pushing on the plunger. The pressure does not build up excessively and rupture the tube; instead, the pressure continuously accelerates a jet of water—a fountain. Sometimes the jet hits her poor grandfather. For weeks after the flood began, each incremental release of nuclear energy in the fluttering crust increased the pressure in the SCW within interconnected pore spaces in the lower crust. But that pressure increase was transferred through those channels in the lower crust down into the subterranean water chamber, so the increased pressure continuously accelerated the water flowing out from under each hydroplate. Therefore, the velocities of the fountains became gigantic while the pressures in the channels did not grow to excessive amounts and destroy even more of the crust.93 Within weeks, more than 1,800,000,000,000,000 1-megaton hydrogen bombs’ worth of energy89 were converted primarily to kinetic energy. That energy expelled some water and rocky debris even into outer space. Of course, Laney’s gun is small, so the walls of the tube and nozzle produce considerable friction per unit of water. However, if the water gun became large enough to hold and expel an “ocean of water,” the friction per unit of water would be negligible. Also, if Laney could accelerate that much water, not for a second or two, but for a few weeks, and if the pressure she applied to the plunger markedly exceeded the preflood pressure in the subterranean chamber, she, too, could permanently expel water from the earth. Although the atmospheric turbulence must have been great, would the friction of the fountains against the atmosphere overheat the atmosphere? No. Recall how negligible the friction per unit volume of water was. Also note that the rupture—a deep tension fracture—quickly became miles wide94 and then grew even wider. (Tension cracks are suddenly pulled apart, just as when a stretched length of rubber snaps, its two ends rapidly separate.) Therefore, once the fountains broke through the atmosphere, only the sides of the fountains—a relatively thin boundary layer—were slowed by the atmosphere. Besides, the crust, fluttering at about a cycle every 10 minutes,95 caused the fountains to pulsate at that same frequency. These relatively quick pulsations would not overcome much of the atmosphere’s considerable inertia, so most of the atmosphere was not dragged upward into outer space. (To demonstrate this property of inertia, which even gases have, give a quick horizontal jerk on a tablecloth and notice how plates on the tablecloth remain motionless.) Although Laney’s gun is orders of magnitude smaller than the fountains of the great deep, the mechanism, forces, and energy are analogous.96 |
Heat added to SCW raises temperatures only slightly, for three reasons.
1. Liquid quickly evaporates from the surface of the myriad of microscopic droplets floating in the supercritical vapor. We see surface evaporation on a large scale when heat is added to a pan of water simmering on the stove at 212°F (100°C). The water’s temperature does not rise, but great volumes of vapor are produced.
2. As heat is steadily added, positive and negative electrical charges (ions) are increasingly produced and separated. Therefore, more and more energy is stored electrically, so temperatures rise very little. As water escaped upward during the flood and temperatures and pressures dropped, those electrical charges recombined and the energy was recovered with almost 100% efficiency.
3. As more heat was added to the escaping SCW, the fountains accelerated even more. With that greater acceleration came greater expansion and cooling.
Nuclear energy primarily became electrical energy and then kinetic energy. Had the nuclear energy produced heat only, much of the earth would have melted.89 Also remember, quartz piezoelectricity shuts off at about 1,063°F (573°C).
Chemical Evolution Theory. The current evolutionary theory for the formation of chemical elements and radioisotopes evolved from earlier theories. Each began by assuming a big bang and considering what it might produce. Years later, fatal flaws were found.
Initially (in 1946), George Gamow, a key figure in developing the big bang theory, said that during the first few seconds after the universe’s hot expansion began, nuclear reactions produced all the chemical elements.97 Two years later, Gamow retracted that explanation. Few heavy elements could have been produced, because the expansion rate was too great, and the heavier nuclei became, the more their positive charges would repel each other.98
In 1948, the follow-on theory assumed that a big bang produced only neutrons.99 A free neutron decays in minutes, becoming a proton, an electron, and a particle (an antineutrino) that can be disregarded in this discussion. Supposedly, protons and neutrons slowly merged to become heavier and heavier elements. Later, that theory was abandoned when it was realized that any nucleus with a total of five or eight nucleons (protons or neutrons) will decay and lose one or more nucleons in about a second or less.100 In other words, growing a nucleus by adding one nucleon at a time encounters barriers at 5 and 8 atomic mass units.
The next theory said that a big bang produced only hydrogen. Much later, stars evolved. They fused this hydrogen into helium, which usually has four nucleons (two protons and two neutrons). If three helium nuclei quickly merged, producing a nucleus weighing 12 AMU, these barriers at 5 and 8 AMU could be jumped. This theory was abandoned when calculations showed that the entire process, especially the production of enough helium inside stars, would take too long.
A fourth theory assumed that two helium nuclei and several neutrons might merge when helium-rich stars exploded as supernovas. This theory was abandoned when calculations showed that, just to produce the amount of helium needed, stars would have had to generate much more heat than they could reasonably produce in their lifetimes.103
The current evolutionary theory for earth’s radioactivity, which we will analyze in detail, has the big bang producing only hydrogen, helium, and a trace of lithium. Inside stars, two helium nuclei sometimes merge briefly (for about 7 × 10-17 of a second—less than one ten-millionth of a billionth of a second). If (and what a big “if” that is!), during this brief instant, a third alpha particle merges with the first two, carbon will be formed. Then the remaining chemical elements lighter than 60 AMU can be created by simply adding more protons, neutrons, and alpha particles—but only if stars had somehow formed. [Pages 28–36 explain why stars, galaxies, and planets would not form from the debris of a big bang.]
Assuming the formation of stars and the highly improbable triple collision of alpha particles at a rapid enough rate, stars “burning” hydrogen for billions of years might theoretically produce the rest of the 26 or so lightest chemical elements. But fusion inside stars must stop when nuclei reach about 60 AMU. How the more than 66 other naturally-occurring chemical elements (those heavier than iron) were produced is not known.104 Charles Seife explains:
We are all made of starstuff. The big bang created hydrogen, helium, and a little bit of lithium and other light atoms. But everything else—the carbon, oxygen, and other elements that make up animals, plants, and Earth itself—was made by stars. The problem is that physicists aren’t quite sure how stars did it.105
Temperatures hundreds of times greater than those occurring inside stars are needed.106 Exploding stars, called supernovas, release extreme amounts of energy. Therefore, the latest chemical evolution theory assumes that all the heavier chemical elements are produced by supernovas—and then expelled into the vacuum of space. By this thinking, radioactive atoms have been present throughout the earth since it, the Sun, and the rest of the solar system evolved from scattered supernova debris. [But again, the theoretical understanding of how stars and the solar system formed is seriously flawed. See pages 28–36.]