Your id isn't from 97 as some others have already pointed out. I think it was late 97 early 98 when the registration system was implemented. I think I waited a while before registering and still have a four digit one. People liked the anonymity of the original site, heh.
Yeah, you don't want to mess with neutron sources. Fast neutrons penetrate lots of materials (due to the lack of charge), much like gammas, and can produce short-lived isotopes that continue to decay after the source has been removed.
Since you mention neutrinos, it is also worth noting that there was similar discussion (5 or so years ago) as to whether we can observe periodic variation in the number of neutrinos seen on Earth using various experiments. (Note that periodicities in neutrino rates are not what physicists call "neutrino oscillations". That's an entirely different effect.) Those papers claiming a periodicity included one of the authors on this study of radioactivity decay, and the analysis techniques were disputed by other papers as giving an unacceptably high rate of false positives. The experiments presented counter-analyses showing no significant signal once the probability of false positives was dealt with. (Disclaimer: I was tangentially involved in one of those papers.)
I haven't looked closely enough at the radioactive decay papers to see if the same issue has cropped up again here, but the neutrino periodicity argument is a good example of how these signals can fall apart under closer scrutiny.
Another relatively easy control would be to conduct simultaneous experiments in the northern and southern hemispheres. Many external effects (like temperature) would be 180 degrees out of phase, while the distance from the Sun will be essentially the same for the two experiments.
I think the problem is that the link is not yet established. What we have is a link between count rates in a detector observing a sample of some isotope and time of year, which no one disputes (we reasonably assume they are not making up their data). The argument is whether you can make the inductive leap to the claim that radioactive decay rates depend on the amount of solar radiation. As shown in some of those papers above, other experiments don't (like the test with the MESSENGER probe) show the effect you would expect if solar radiation were the cause.
Even if we do find there is an external influence on decay rates (which would be pretty nifty), that definitely does not imply that the times of individual radioactive decays are predictable.
This argument about solar influence on nuclear decay rates has been going on for a few years now. The experimental issues are hard to interpret, because you have to be able to rule out external influences on your counting apparatus. It is extremely hard when the period of your signal matches the orbit of the Earth, which aliases all sorts periodic behavior that has nothing to do with new physics. There are seasonal variations in temperature, cosmic rays, the voltage delivered by the power company, foot traffic near your lab, etc, etc. Verifying that none of these things can possibly influence your results is what takes all the time.
A semi-random selection of earlier papers on the subject:
"Experimental investigation of changes in beta-decay count rate of radioactive elements" (1999):
Claiming 24 hour and 27 day periodicities in the decay rates of cobalt-60 and cesium-137
http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ex/9907008v1.pdf
"Power Spectrum Analyses of Nuclear Decay Rates" (2010):
Reports of an annual periodicity in the decay rates of chlorine-36, silicon-32, manganese-56, and radium-226.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.0924
"Solar Influence on Nuclear Decay Rates: Constraints from the MESSENGER Mission" (2011)
A study of cesium-137 decay rates on a spacecraft going to Mercury show no change as the spacecraft travelled closer to the Sun.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4074
"Search for the time dependence of the 137Cs decay constant" (2012)
Cesium-137 decays in a detector underground (shielding it from most cosmic rays) show no significant periodicity, with limits much lower than claimed signals.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.3662
"Power Spectrum Analysis of LMSU (Lomonosov Moscow State University) Nuclear Decay-Rate Data: Further Indication of r-Mode Oscillations in an Inner Solar Tachocline" (2012)
Studies of strontium-90 decays show a variety of periodic variations, ranging from 0.26 per year to 3.96 per year.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.3107
This list goes on and on. There is hardly any consensus on the issue.
One of the advantages laptops have over desktop computers is effectively a built-in, relatively lightweight UPS. When someone kicks out the cord on my laptop, I don't even notice, but on my desktop, that would be very annoying. If some upgraded RAM/Flash + operating system support would allow hibernation on a desktop when the power was cut, that would be very handy. Some thought would have to be given to how this should interact with filesystems, since the hard drive would instantly lose power as well. Any writes in progress would have to be reattempted when the system booted up again.
Of course, the main problem is that laptops are quickly becoming people's desktops, and that might kill the market for this before it even starts.
Just FYI: Nearly all physics articles from the last 15 years are posted in "preprint" form on the arXiv before submission to a journal. The arXiv is completely free, and is where nearly all physicists read papers from, rather than from the journals themselves.
Just Google the title of the paper you are interested in, and you usually find the preprint version:
Yea, who better to host this than HP, lmfao. I worked there as a direct hire for a while last year but it was such a clusterf*ck I left and let them know why in my written exit interview, they don't even bother to do them in person. I will have to say my coworkers and direct supervisors were all top notch people but the upper management is just insane. Of course it didn't hurt that I got a huge pay increase at the same time, but I wouldn't have been looking for that job in the first place if HP wasn't so bad off.
I agree with a previous poster that most of the time a person will leave a company due to a bad (direct) manager, but in HP's case it is unfortunately upper management that is driving all the good employees away.
Regarding hte first point, that 120dB broadband noise figure is giving you at least 140dB of SFDR, probably much better, and the depth of any critical band is going to be even better yet. Even 16 bit data with a decent noise shaper is going to be 120dB deep in the 2-4kHz critical bands. (all of which doesn't disagree with anything you said of course)
Oh! I remember this one
>I guess my point is that it's too easy to make an error when seeing an "interesting idea and no data" and dismissing it.
I agree with you completely. Interesting ideas should be published; no paper is born in the state of being independently verified. I object to those who take these papers as evidence to support a position when no such validation has taken place. Thinking aloud is useful, but thinking aloud != hard data.
I'm actually giggling that 20 bits of real dept is 'disappointing' in any sense of the word. It's bloody fantastic!
(I hadn't meant to trash the ESS chip in any sense. I've not used it, but it looks impressive)
Well, for the record, I've not been rejected, but I've only published within AES once.
It's not an attack, it's more a statement of truth. The AES publishes all sorts of things. Papers with interesting ideas and no data (eg, the J. Dunn 'equiripple filters cause preecho' paper, which presents a fascinating insight, even if it doesn't work out in practice), papers with data that are effectively WTFLOL (the famous Oohashi MRI paper) and papers that are more careful controlled studies. It runs the whole gamut on both sides, just as I said.
Do you deny that a substantial portion of the membership, including many elders of the group, are not 'bigger numbers are always audibly better' audiophiles? It was Andy Moorer himself who, with no hard data, kicked off the insane sampling rate race that now has some hardcore audiophiles wondering if 192kHz is enough.. they're holding out for 384kHz!
Is the AES a worthless cesspool? Oh heck no. Never said that. But treating its publications as more than a good industry rag (where it's sometimes hard to tell the research from the advertisements).. or perhaps an advanced debating club... is probably not a very good idea. Treating any one AES paper as gospel is just insane.
Oh, what do you know. In that case, go forth and unsubscribe
As for me, it was 'membership'. Peer review means little when a substantial portion of the peers don't believe in the scientific method.
Dynamic range (not SNR) is 22.5 bits ("How quiet the chip can get when it's doing nothing/off"). SNR is 20 bits at best given the 120dB THD+N spec.
A successful [software] tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson
