Can radioactivity be nullified?

By Tom Slattery

Nuclear reactor disasters at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and now Fukushima would not
have been nearly so bad were it not for the massive dissemination of long-lived, deadly
nuclear radiation.

We humans dove headlong into the atomic age and its horrible nuclear weapons and its
promise of cheap power generation without knowing what radioactivity is let alone how
to make it un-radioactive. Moreover, no one seems to be thinking about it let alone
searching for it. As far as I know, the Department of Energy has no serious program to
research making radioactive material un-radioactive.

Researchers funded by nations and corporations are trying to find ways of storing
radioactive waste from military research and civilian power generation. There are plans
to store radioactive waste in mined-out mountains and plans to bake radioactive material
into bricks. Some have even suggested using NASA to shoot radioactive material into the
Sun, Moon, or asteroids.

But virtually no one has seriously thought about let alone worked at finding ways to
nullify radioactivity itself. Everyone seems to have thrown up arms in despair and given
it up as if a hopeless quest.

No one can find an answer to a problem without first creating questions. Even the silliest
questions about nullifying radioactivity would be better than the present pervasive
morbid silence.

Decades ago, back in a different millennium, I puttered with asking questions about
radioactivity. As time dragged on it slipped away and I had completely forgotten about it
until about a week ago when a friend emailed me a historical photograph of Grants Pass,
Oregon. I suddenly recalled the nearby Rogue River campground and the modified
geodesic dome tent that I had invented for a camping trip.

It was actually a homemade painted canvas tent and tent frame made from pentagons,
hexagons, and half-hexagons (trapezoids). In short, it was a truncated icosahedron sliced
in half. The main advantage was that it had no poles in the center, as with army pup tents,
for instance. But the main reason for making it was that it was "with it," a tent for more
intellectual and creative modern times.

My wife had painstakingly sewed the hexagons and pentagons together using a one-dollar
sewing machine bought from Goodwill. I had made a frame of hexagons, pentagons, and
trapezoids from hardwood molding and wood staples. The floor of the huge trunk of our
1959 Ford Fairlane was large enough for these geometric figures, and we drove north
from San Jose, California, on a camping trip all the way to British Columbia and back.
In these modern times one might instantly recognize my invented tent as a super-sized
soccer ball cut in half. But on our camping trip in that summer of 1966, soccer balls,
including the one used in the World Cup, were still being made of curved brown leather
strips sewn together and inflated into a sphere.

Thus the strange newfangled tent got ooos and ahhhs from our fellow campers and other
spectators. And that, of course, made the camping trip ever so slightly more pleasant.

I would not see famous Buckminster Fuller giant geodesic dome at the Expo-67 world's
fair in Montreal until the next year. But geodesic domes had entered the popular
imagination and someone had erected a sample wood-frame geodesic dome house in a
parking lot at the San Jose State (then) College campus. I had gone to see it several times
and had modified the geodesic idea into my one-half truncated icosahedron tent.

Doing so had come natural to me. In the mid-1960s I was working as grunt minimum-
wage labor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, working around big-brained nuclear
physicists and wishing that I could somehow contribute to their esoteric craft. And it
eventually came around to my wondering about radioactivity and whether radioactive
waste might somehow be made un-radioactive.

Some physicists had told me about the workings of beta-decay. At its root, radioactivity
is beta-decay. In simple terms, a neutron taken out of a nucleus and left alone will decay
into a proton, an electron, and an anti-neutrino in about fourteen-and-a-half minutes. In
other words, a neutron might be seen as a cobbled-together proton, electron, and neutrino

I had looked with amateur eyes at the Chart of Nuclides for clues. The Chart of Nuclides
(Google it and see one of several copies posted) has the number of neutrons in an element
plotted along one axis against the number of protons plotted on the other axis.

Creatively looking at the Chart, one might conjure up a scheme where it is neutrinos that
are the glue holding electrons and protons together to make neutrons.

In this scheme the Chart of Nuclides is can be seen as an axis of protons plotted against
an axis of neutrinos.

Those were merely some of the wild questions going through my mind as I did my paid
work of using a measuring machine to measure nuclear particle tracks captured in spark
chambers. I worked in a noisy dark room all day. My boss would eventually win a Nobel
Prize related to that early measuring work and much more to follow.

In the course of my questioning myself about what radioactivity might be I began

wondering about shapes of atomic elements and what part that might play. For instance,
the universe is made up mostly of hydrogen.

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Hydrogen makes up most of the mass of the universe partly because it stays stable and
doesn't decay. On the Chart of Nuclides hydrogen is a single proton. It is effectively a
point with no shape.

There is no shape to distort. And there are no neutrons to decay into those other things.
So it just stays there without changing.

There are, of course, other forms of hydrogen that would begin to take on shape. There is
deuterium, made up of one proton and one neutron. At any given instant a deuterium
atom might have the imaginary shape of a gym dumbbell with a line of attractive force
holding the neutron and proton together to keep them from flying off separately into
space.

This shape seems terribly stable. As long as the neutron in the deuterium atom stays in
context with the proton in it, it won't decay. And therefore it seems fair to ask this
question. What is it in this marital relationship of proton and neutron that keeps the
neutron from flying apart in beta decay into a proton, electron, and neutrino? In finding
an answer to that question one might also find a way to nullify radioactivity.

The next shape is a triangle. The triangle can either be helium-3, two protons and one
neutron, which is terribly stable, or another triangle of heavy hydrogen, called tritium,
that has one proton and two neutrons. Tritium is unstable and decays (i.e. is radioactive).

If we are dealing only in shapes, both equilateral triangles would probably look alike.
Helium-3, would have two protons and one neutron at its vertices. Tritium, would have
the opposite, two neutrons and one proton at its vertices.

So it would seem that there may be an unknown quality in the proton that can handle one
neutron and keep it from radioactive decay. Or, alternatively, two protons can handle one
neutron, and keep it from radioactive decay. I have no idea what this unknown "stuff"
might be. It just seems reasonable to guess that something might be there.

But the proton "stuff" would seem to have limited power. There does not seem to be
enough of this "stuff" in one proton to handle two neutrons at a time. As far as the
triangle-shaped tritium atom goes, in about 12 years (radioactive half-life) one of those
two neutrons is going to fly off and decay.

Shape itself does not seem to matter in this case. If anything might be said for shape, it
might be structural strength inherent in the shape, and after the three nucleons of tritium
and the three nucleons of helium-3 comes a reasonably tough shape.

Next to hydrogen, the most common atom in the universe is helium. Helium is terribly
stable and had two neutrons and two protons. Therefore at any given instant the shape of
a helium atom would be a tetrahedron, a pretty indestructible geometric figure.

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Moreover, each of the two neutrons in helium has its own proton that might keep it
stable. Each helium proton, therefore, would seem to have enough of that special secret
ingredient that keeps its companion neutron from expiring into radioactive decay.

Interestingly, at this point in the Chart of Nuclides there almost seems to be a momentary
dearth of stable isotopes as the Chart goes from helium-4 to lithium-6. And it hints that
shape may matter. A shape for lithium-6 would seem to be highly irregular, and yet the
three and three proton-neutron balance seems to make lithium-6 is stable, almost seeming
to counter the irregular and awkward shape.

That nuclear shape may play a role in radioactive decay might be seen in beryllium-7.
Beryllium-7 has three neutrons, and it has what would seem a more than adequate four
protons to keep these neutrons stable. But beryllium-7 is still not stable.

And continuing on, lithium-8 and beryllium-8, each of which might form a structurally
strong cube shape at any given instant of time, both have half-lives of less than a day and
thus are very unstable. To paraphrase Robert Frost, something there is that does not love
a 90-degree vertex in isotope geometry. It may be caused by spin, by a vector nature of
point charge, or perhaps even by the hypothetical shapes of nucleons themselves.
Whatever it might be, a cube-shape with its 90-degree vertices does not lead to a stable
isotope. Lithium-8 and beryllium-8 decay rapidly.

Going back to a look at awkward-shaped lithium-6, each of the three lithium-6 neutrons
has a proton to keep it from flying off into self-destruction and radioactive decay. For
whatever reasons, proton-neutron pairs appear to make for stability.

Moreover, the next stable isotope, lithium-7, shows that three protons have enough of the
mysterious stuff to keep four neutrons from radioactive decay. It might be at the limit of
their capacities, but they do it.

And the next stable isotope, beryllium-9, would seem to indicate that four protons have
enough "mysterious stuff" to mollify five neutrons.

Both carbon-13 and more common carbon-12 might have dodecahedron shapes at any
given instant in time, with the carbon-13 dodecahedron having an additional and
equidistant neutron in its center. A dodecahedron is a nice strong shape, but here again
shape seems less important to stability than the balance or near-balance between numbers
of protons and numbers of neutrons.

But while stable carbon-12 has six neutrons and six protons, and stable carbon-13 has
seven neutrons and six protons, unstable carbon-14, so useful in radiocarbon dating due
to its radioactivity and known half-life, would seem to lack sufficient protons to keep its
neutrons together. Carbon-14's six protons cannot supply enough "stuff" to keep one of
eight neutrons from decaying.

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To recap, in the unstable form of heavy hydrogen called tritium, its one proton can't keep
two neutrons stable, and tritium radioactively decays. But when this is symmetrically
reversed in the form of helium-3, the two protons apparently are more than adequate to
keep the one neutron nice and stable. The equilateral triangle shape that it has at any
given instant is a nice firm and inflexible geometric figure, but the ratio of neutrons to
protons would appear to decide stability.

We may see this again in both shape and in neutron-proton ratio farther up the Chart of
Nuclides. While the strong dodecahedron shape can include both stable carbon-12 and
stable carbon-13, in carbon-14 this shape distorts and becomes unwieldy with yet one
more neutron looking like it was tacked on.

Radioactive carbon-14 has an unwieldy shape that intuitively looks like it should fly
apart. Moreover, the six protons in carbon-14 lack adequate "stuff" to keep one of the
eight neutrons from radioactive decay.

In short, geometric shape of isotopes seems to matter. But an even or near-even pairing of
neutrons and protons seems more effective in preventing radioactivity.

The shape of the 180-degree attractive force line between the neutron and proton in the
form of heavy hydrogen called deuterium causes no instability. The 60-degree vertices of
the proton-proton-neutron equilateral triangle of helium-three cause no instability. The
60-degree vertices of the tetrahedron of proton-neutron-proton-neutron helium-4 cause no
instability.

And farther up the Chart of Nuclides the 30-degree or near-30-degree vertices in

icosahedrons and truncated icosahedrons would seem to cause no instability. But in this
scheme of things at least, Nature apparently does not like the shape of a cube and/or its
90-degree vertices and does not tolerate them around for long.

If there might be some "stuff" in protons that prevents decay in adjacent neutrons, I can't
imagine what it might be. In present physics everything seems to have been accounted
for, but logically some strange neutron-soothing stuff seems to be there.

So I am putting this idea up as a beginning of questioning necessary to deal with

radioactivity and not as any kind of theory, let alone answer. Like Priestly was with his
oxygen-backwards phlogiston, some or all of this might be backwards, but it might lead
to some crucial understanding.

That is to say, there might not be any mysterious undetectable "stuff" in the protons
themselves that stabilizes adjacent neutrons. It may be the opposite, that there is an
absence of something that the protons seek and capture from adjacent neutrons, and that
stealing of stuff stabilizes the neutrons as long as they share this with the protons.

Shape seems to play an important but secondary role. For example, while carbon-14 (six
protons, eight neutrons) is radioactive, nitrogen-14 (seven protons, seven neutrons) is

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extremely stable. Both would probably have the same awkward shape. So the balance of
protons and neutrons would seem to be the deciding factor.

And there is one more important factor to consider. So far these elements have been only
light elements at the beginning of the Chart of Nuclides. At the beginning the number of
protons and the number of neutrons is balanced and equal, or close to it.

When protons and neutrons in these light elements get out of balance or geometric shapes
get unwieldy, the resulting radioactive material generally has a fairly short half-life. The
longer-lived and more deadly radioactive elements are heavier farther along on the Chart
of Nuclides.

At the light-element end of the Chart the proton-neutron balance pretty much holds up
until calcium-40 (twenty protons, twenty neutrons).

But the full Chart of known elements goes way beyond 40 up to elements heavier than
260. After calcium-40 as numbers of protons and neutrons accumulate, an imbalance of
protons and neutrons steadily increases until it reaches about (to keep it simple) 100
protons for about 160 neutrons.

Toward the end of the Chart something that forbids stability takes over. The last
genuinely stable element on the Chart and in the universe is lead-208. But realistically
there are elements like unanium-238 that has a half-life of billions of years. This indeed is
what makes it a hazard. It's going to stay radioactive for a half-life of close to five billion
years, but it is going to stay around for all that time as a useful metal to make, say,
depleted uranium artillery shells, too.

The point is, though, that there is eventually a cap on how big the universe allows an
atom to get. Past the end of the Chart atoms just become too big, too heavy, too
geometrically unwieldy, and/or other unknown factors to even exist let alone to stay
stable. Shape would seem to have a role in that, too.

But before that, way down on the Chart of Nuclides, yet one more mysterious factor
would seem to be on the table. As elements increase in size beyond 40 nucleons, instead
of a balance of protons and neutrons appearing to prevent beta decay and radioactivity it's
just the opposite. An increasing increase in neutrons is required to hold the ever-heavier
elements together until near the end of the Chart there are roughly eight neutrons for
every five protons.

Or might it be that there is an increasing increase in neutrinos? Neutrons decay into

protons, electrons, and neutrinos. In reverse, and this has been seen in labs, a neutrino
puts together an electron and a proton to make a neutron.

Due to the size of heavier elements, one thing that may be a factor in radioactivity and
stability is shape. From helium-4 with the simplest three-dimensional shape of a
tetrahedron made up of four nucleons at any given instant, the Chart rises to large

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numbers of nucleons and what thus must be unwieldy, almost unimaginable, and
probably nearly unmanageable geometric shapes.

So might the additional neutrinos (from neutrons) be a "glue" be necessary to keep things
from flying apart in these super-sized nuclear behemoths? And could this neutrino "glue"
be specific to vertex angles, 90-degrees being effectively forbidden, 60-degree being
most preferred? As these shapes become larger and heavier, 30-degrees and near-30-
degrees vertices may be increasingly tolerated?

So there might be these two approaches to nullifying radioactivity. One might be finding
out what the mysterious "stuff" in protons is that holds neutrons back from beta decay. I
doubt if anyone will soon find a substance that one could pour onto radioactive waste to
neutralize it. And an also unworkable idea might be to stream a proton plasma over
radioactive material to neutralize it, although that may be getting closer to reality if the
protons might be slowed to almost rest by a moderator.

If research might show that there is indeed a mysterious "proton stuff," more research
after that might find how to utilize it.

Shape of isotopes also might lead to something to neutralize radioactivity. At first

research might lead to clumsy and expensive devices. What comes to mind are the huge
and electricity-intensive mass spectrometers used during World War Two to separate U-
235 from U-238, atom-by-atom. My wild science fiction guess is that the early successes
to nullifying radioactivity will be done atom-by-atom.

Early atom-by-atom efforts at changing atomic shape could well be energy-intensive

devices that change radioactive material to non-radioactive material by changing shapes
atom-by-atom. A science-fiction mind can conjure up super-focused super-conducting
ultra-high-field pentagon magnets that force changes in direction of each atom and shake
them into new shapes.

Perhaps high intensity laser beams, already shown to cause nuclear fusion reactions,
might be focused at the vertex of change of direction in the pentagon magnet to really
shake odd geometric configurations into more stable shapes.

As with the Oak Ridge mass spectrometers, when newer and more efficient technology
like the gas centrifuge comes along, it would replace the old cumbersome atom-by-atom
apparatus.

These are, of course, wilder fantasies and guesses than Alice in Wonderland. They are
here to show that there might be avenues of thought to begin speculating about. They are
better than giving up completely, which appears to have been the course of contemplation
and action so far.

In order to think about it you have to start thinking about it. You may end up dealing with
bizarre unknown or far-out physics, science-fiction things like interactions with dark

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matter or dark energy. Of course they're no longer bizarre when they're found to be what
we're made of.

And if all of this highly speculative text might be too farfetched and ultimately useless,
forgive me. Writing it was fun and brought back fine mellow memories from days of
living in a bygone millennium.

Rocky River, Ohio

May 2011