- #1
SongDog
- 24
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[Mentors' note: This thread was split from https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/can-we-carbon-date-a-gas.981218/]
Empirical test:
If one wished to implement a controlled experiment of this sort, start with separating stocks of pure C12 and pure C14 with a mass spectrometer. Use the C12 to grow a diamond epitaxy layer on a silicon wafer covered in an addressable array of a billion MOSFETs (plus a few spares). Then use molecular beam epitaxy to plant a billion individual C14 atoms in the channels of those FETs. Passivate. Measure the switching speed of each transistor. Now wait a while. After 0.00057 years (~5 hours) one would expect to see ~50 FETs change their speed where the semiconductor C14 has become N14 (a Group V, or n-type dopant). Once a FET's speed has changed, it should stay changed (no spontaneous conversion back to C14). The catalogue of which transistors had been doped should grow monotonically at the predicted rate.
Now, if this can be worked, it gets interesting. Make two such wafers, but use entangled (how is a different discussion) pairs of C14 atoms to make wafers of entangled transistors. Separate the two wafers, sending one off into a different relativistic frame (say on a Breakthrough Starshot). That one should age slower. In such a distinct frame, what does Bell's Theorem predict about the result when it reads the distant FETs? Will the inverse decay behaviour happen locally at the remote timescale? Can this be used for a low-power FTL signaling mechanism?
Empirical test:
If one wished to implement a controlled experiment of this sort, start with separating stocks of pure C12 and pure C14 with a mass spectrometer. Use the C12 to grow a diamond epitaxy layer on a silicon wafer covered in an addressable array of a billion MOSFETs (plus a few spares). Then use molecular beam epitaxy to plant a billion individual C14 atoms in the channels of those FETs. Passivate. Measure the switching speed of each transistor. Now wait a while. After 0.00057 years (~5 hours) one would expect to see ~50 FETs change their speed where the semiconductor C14 has become N14 (a Group V, or n-type dopant). Once a FET's speed has changed, it should stay changed (no spontaneous conversion back to C14). The catalogue of which transistors had been doped should grow monotonically at the predicted rate.
Now, if this can be worked, it gets interesting. Make two such wafers, but use entangled (how is a different discussion) pairs of C14 atoms to make wafers of entangled transistors. Separate the two wafers, sending one off into a different relativistic frame (say on a Breakthrough Starshot). That one should age slower. In such a distinct frame, what does Bell's Theorem predict about the result when it reads the distant FETs? Will the inverse decay behaviour happen locally at the remote timescale? Can this be used for a low-power FTL signaling mechanism?
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