# Let's talk about piezonuclear fission reactions **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 11, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068 "2014-02-11T17:10:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/1 "2014-02-11T17:10:35Z")
There’s [an article](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140211084009.htm) on Science Daily where some Italian scientists are suggesting the neutron radiation from an earthquake in 33 AD could have caused the image of the Shroud of Turin, and the neutrons would also have impacted the Carbon dating. Reading the article, the neutrons apparently come from piezonuclear fission reactions. Intriguing, but… Earthquakes cause neutron radiation? Piezonuclear fission reaction? 😕 Doing a little searching, piezonuclear fission reaction [seems to be controversial](http://www.nature.com/news/italian-scientists-win-battle-to-halt-controversial-research-1.10823). The idea is that crushing some rocks somehow triggers nuclear fission. Anyway, any physics types want to weigh in on this? Is this right up there with cold fusion? Does anyone know of any attempted measurements of elevated neutron radiation associated with Earthquakes, apart from those few researchers? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/2 "2014-02-11T17:15:58Z")
Can piezoelectric effects trigger fission? I wouldn’t be surprised, on a very small scale. Would it be enough to cause dramatic effects like burning an image into a cloth and throwing off C14 dating that thoroughly? It is to laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/3 "2014-02-11T23:14:23Z")
Rule of thumb: whenever someone proposes a field of science about which you have never heard in order to specifically explain something like the Shroud of Turin, Bigfoot, or UFO sightings, your skepticism level should increase by at least two orders of magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/4 "2014-02-12T03:01:04Z")
There is such a thing as [pyroelectric fusion.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroelectric_fusion) This is real. It is a form of tabletop cold fusion. It might be useful as a compact neutron source but it is of zero use as a power source, as its developers would be quick to point out. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/5 "2014-02-12T12:55:57Z")
If I was God, and wanted an image of my son imprinted on a bit of cloth, I would skip the earthquake and just create it directly. On the other hand, if you don’t think its really Jesus (and, therefore, that God did it), in what way is piezoelectric fusion a more plausible explanation than that someone painted it, at the time the carbon dating suggests. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2014, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/6 "2014-02-12T13:00:41Z")
Yeah, this one calls for Ockham’s Chainsaw. ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/7 "2014-02-14T12:08:59Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Yeah, this one calls for Ockham’s Chainsaw. No no, Ockham’s neutrino gun can knock this one over. Of course the neutron bombardment could have occured anytime between then and now, to get the same result (wrt C14) so why did they pick 33 AD ? But no, that level of of neutron bombardment would be somewhat … evidenced… There’s be some other evidence, such as a crater the size of an ocean… ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/8 "2014-02-14T12:51:02Z")
> [@Isilder](#): > > Of course the neutron bombardment could have occured anytime between then and now, to get the same result (wrt C14) so why did they pick 33 AD ? Because there was a large (8.2) earthquake in 33 AD in Old Jerusalem. Their main… belief?.. line of research?.. is on this concept of piezonuclear fission, and that it can happen during earthquakes. The article about the Shroud of Turin is more of an offshoot from that. At least, I’m assuming that they worked in that order. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/9 "2014-02-14T13:01:17Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Is this right up there with cold fusion? No. This particular theory is right up there with “The Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?” and “I’m not saying it was Aliens… but it was Aliens.” It would really need a lot more scientific justification to be allowed a comparison to cold fusion. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/10 "2014-02-14T17:00:43Z")
That’s overstating it. Here’s a [published (and presumably peer-reviewed) paper they wrote](http://staff.polito.it/alberto.carpinteri/papers/CARPINTERI_2012_N.671_RMRE.pdf), reporting their results on piezonuclear fission. Certainly not of an “It was aliens” caliber. Look at Figure 3, where they are certainly measuring something at the moment where the fracture occurs. I personally think they’re going astray in their interpretation that it’s neutrons causing the effect, rather than some other effect. Maybe a loose cable that gets shaken at the moment of fracture. (Hmmm… loose cable causing an anomalous result that goes against known physics… where have I seen that before in the last couple years…) Anyway, it’s not someone starting with “Shroud of Turin must be real!” and working backwards to try to explain away the issues with it. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2014, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/11 "2014-02-14T22:54:22Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > If I was God, and wanted an image of my son imprinted on a bit of cloth, I would skip the earthquake and just create it directly. Of course not. Any mere mortal could have done that. What God needs to do, and does, is to create cryptic and ambiguous evidence of His existence, thereby sorting out the Skeptics from the True Believers! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![timbo984](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@timbo984](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/timbo984)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/12 "2014-02-15T05:27:46Z")
Carpinteri is, by all appearances, a major league crackpot. For evidence, take a look at his proposed fission reactions in the paper. Both involve fissioning Iron 56, the most stable nucleus in existence. These reactions require very large energy inputs. Running rough numbers, the binding energy of Iron 56 is about 8.8 MeV/nucleon, and this is higher than the binding energy of his proposed decay products (e.g. Aluminum 27). This means that per iron nucleus, we would need maybe 20 MeV of energy **input** (8.8 for each of two freed neutrons, plus some extra because Aluminum 27 isn’t so stable). Converting just 1 mg of iron with this proposed reaction would require an input of about 40 MJ of energy, roughly what you get from a few sticks of dynamite. This is obviously ridiculous–these experiments have no large energy inputs! They just crack rocks! Carpinteri’s results would violate conservation of energy, yet he seems completely oblivious to this fact. As for how the paper got into the journal, perhaps it has to do with the editor in chief being in the same institute as the authors. This series of claims looks much more embarrassing to me than cold fusion–at least cold fusion isn’t quite so obviously ridiculous. The experiments weren’t repeatable, but they didn’t violate basic laws of physics. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/13 "2014-02-15T10:26:53Z")
> [@ZenBeam](#): > > Look at Figure 3, where they are certainly measuring something at the moment where the fracture occurs. So, they measured a piezonuclear effect. How does one leap from that to “earthquakes generate enough neutron activity to burn an image into cloth, and just happened to burn an image into the most controversial cloth in religious history, and this effect just happened to not be noticed at any other heavily investigated earthquake site in human history”? That is the point where a potentially interesting line of scientific inquiry goes completely off the rails. There’s no reason to bring the Shroud into the discussion at all. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/14 "2014-02-15T13:29:35Z")
> [@timbo984](#): > > Carpinteri is, by all appearances, a major league crackpot. For evidence, take a look at his proposed fission reactions in the paper. Both involve fissioning Iron 56, the most stable nucleus in existence. These reactions require very large energy inputs. Running rough numbers, the binding energy of Iron 56 is about 8.8 MeV/nucleon, and this is higher than the binding energy of his proposed decay products (e.g. Aluminum 27). This means that per iron nucleus, we would need maybe 20 MeV of energy **input** (8.8 for each of two freed neutrons, plus some extra because Aluminum 27 isn’t so stable). Converting just 1 mg of iron with this proposed reaction would require an input of about 40 MJ of energy, roughly what you get from a few sticks of dynamite. This is obviously ridiculous–these experiments have no large energy inputs! They just crack rocks! > > Carpinteri’s results would violate conservation of energy, yet he seems completely oblivious to this fact. As for how the paper got into the journal, perhaps it has to do with the editor in chief being in the same institute as the authors. This series of claims looks much more embarrassing to me than cold fusion–at least cold fusion isn’t quite so obviously ridiculous. The experiments weren’t repeatable, but they didn’t violate basic laws of physics. I didn’t catch that the “decay products” had more mass than the starting Iron atom. Yeah, that’s pretty fucked up. (It doesn’t change your point, but Al 27 is stable. ETA: maybe you just meant relative to Iron 56?) ---
**Author:** ![timbo984](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5e9695/32.png) [@timbo984](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/timbo984)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/15 "2014-02-15T16:23:28Z")
Yes, I meant Al27 is stable relative to Fe56. The difference in binding energy is about 0.5 MeV/nucleon, so I underestimated the energy difference. The proposed decay products have about (0.5_54+8.8_2)~45 MeV more energy than the inputs. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/16 "2014-02-16T11:23:12Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > What God needs to do, and does, is to create cryptic and ambiguous evidence of His existence, thereby sorting out the Skeptics from the True Believers! 😉 We apologize for the inconvenience. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/17 "2014-02-16T11:47:28Z")
Let me get this straight. This earthquake happened 33 years after Jebus’s death and 32 years and 360 something days after he - split - as good a word as any. So this nuclear effect scorched a cloth with an image of him even though he was not there aaaannnndddd created more matter. Did I leave something out? Missing something? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/18 "2014-02-16T12:41:28Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Did I leave something out? Missing something? Because of quantum. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/19 "2014-02-16T14:23:06Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Let me get this straight. This earthquake happened 33 years after Jebus’s death and 32 years and 360 something days after he - split - as good a word as any. So this nuclear effect scorched a cloth with an image of him even though he was not there aaaannnndddd created more matter. > > Did I leave something out? Missing something? So maybe it’s not Jesus, maybe it’s… Oh, wait, you said _Jebus_. Yeah, come to think of it, that guy _did_ die in 33AD. In that big Earthquake. But, yeah, if it’s not Jesus, there’s no particular reason for it to be from 1st century AD, rather than the 13th. Also, not sure how neutron radiation would have imaged _both_ sides of the body onto the shroud, so the only problem neutron radiation (from any source) would solve would be the age. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068/20 "2014-02-16T14:34:16Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Did I leave something out? Missing something? Well, you miss out that, traditionally, Jesus died in 33 AD. However, we don’t have any evidence of an earthquake in Jerusalem from 33 AD, except for the bible, which said that there was an earthquake when Jesus died. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-talk-about-piezonuclear-fission-reactions/681068.md?page=2)