The Coyote and the Disintegrator
The coyote could navigate with uncanny ease. North, South, East, or West – the animal could find his way easily, picking his path better than a man with a map. For eons, the masters of the animal universe could only ponder the means by which the coyote traveled. Or, for that matter – the birds of the sky or the fish of the sea. They all had the ability to move without effort, in the navigation of their life paths, never missing an exit ramp, never with the slightest bit of inaccuracy. All that man could do about this, was ponder.
Einstein had given hints about the coyote’s cause in the early part of the twentieth century. In a famous experiment, Einstein had proven, almost a century ago, – that light was affected by gravity. If light could be so affected – then its particle constituents could be aligned by the same force. The term “particle” is a misnomer. Light is made up of photons, and photons are very small, discrete burps of energy – not really particles, but the term’s usage continues since the days of Newton.
It has been said that light could be affected by magnetism. If photons in transit could be aligned by gravity or magnetism, such that those forces could affect a change – any change at all – in the properties of the light “particle” – then a biological calculus might find a coordinate in the brain of the wily coyote. The resolution of the coyote’s calculus might be quite enough to accurately find the dumpster behind the donut shop. Coordinates taken down to the width of three lithium atoms might lead the hungry animal to find the donut holes he so craved. The masters of the animal world had this sort of biological GPS too – but evolution had demoted it.
But for this to work for the coyote, the photons should come from a special group of photons. The photons should be entangled. Here’s a thought to consider: suppose the sun’s rays are all entangled to some extent. The closer that the individual photons are to any arbitrary common point, the more closely they are entangled and correlated.
Assume that photons in significantly different time frames can be closely correlated, when those photon’s trajectories are very similar, and point to a particular place on earth. This is because the circuitous path of a photon may vary greatly as it passes through the turbulence of the sun and its corona. In this way different photons containing different reference points could be held simultaneously within the eyes and brain of the wily coyote, simplifying the process of the biological calculus. Charts and maps, on papyrus or liquid crystal, would be primitive in comparison. Sound ridiculous? If it does, then the disintegrator will seem even more so …
All radioactive substances emit entangled photons. Not only are these photons entangled, but they possess very high energies. We talk a lot about photons. Everything is photons. In photography, we take pictures of photons. We don’t really photograph the beautiful woman – no – not at all. We photograph her reflected photons. Everything is photons.
Those who master the photons, masters all.
Man has done much with photons, but now is on the exponentially steep portion of his learning curve. In the beginning, sources of entangled photons could produce only small numbers of them for experimental purposes. But within the past two years has come the ability to produce millions of entangled photons in the manner of the short order cook, with the help of optics based silicon wave-guide technologies. These will carry enormous power.
While holding a radioactive lens, you may be struck by some photons. These photons are either alpha, beta, or gamma, depending upon the radioactive decay-product chains associated with the element. It is said that most photons from Thorium sources are alpha, but I have no detailed understanding of this, so at this point it’s just something I’ve read. Nuclear physics is not so much a part of the popular physics I like to read, so I’m not in a position to make any claims about the decay chain. From my limited understanding, the trouble with photons is maximized at the gamma level. I.E, :
gamma >> beta >> alpha >> xray >> UVc >> UVb >> UVa
— (rough correlation: strong, slightly less strong, etc, etc)
From my layman’s understanding: these photons have energy levels that are high enough to make them constitute ionizing radiation. At the stronger end of the scale, they are powerful enough such that they can break apart the DNA of the cells in your body. The body normally fixes such damages in a timely fashion, so that no harm or little harm is usually done. How much damage can your body deal with? Well, a finite amount of it. Statistically, short exposures to a few photons, even photons of the very energetic gamma variety, are unlikely to cause harm that the body can’t fix. Unless, of course, you’re unlucky.
So, let’s not damn the old camera lens completely. I don’t know (and no-one else can quantify) – what constitutes a safe level of ionizing radiation exposure. Even if you don’t own an old lens, your body is still being damaged by the radon from your crawlspace, garage, or basement. That radon may provide you with a larger total number of energetic photons than the lens would, especially if the use of the lens was limited. It’s extremely variable and hard to know. I can’t quantify when damage by energetic photons is over the limit. Everything in this area is gray, like second hand smoke.
I don’t mean to imply excessive risk just by throwing around scary terms. Humans work that way: we seem to associate more risk than is subjectively important, if enough scary terms are present in the conversation. However; my layman’s position makes me no better qualified to discern the risk level than anybody else. Personally, I peg the risk at the level of second hand smoke, but that’s just a personal metric. The risk may be less than I think, or nothing, or more than I think. It’s also important to know that not all old lenses used thorium.
While I have a personal metric, I don’t know how accurate it is, and I figure “Why should I take any chances?” I can still enjoy old film camera lenses because most of them that were made in the 80s (maybe late eighties?) and beyond are less likely to have the radioactivity. I have an old geiger counter, but I’m thinking it’s probably not sensitive enough for evaluating lenses. I’m probably going to purchase a better one.
In the beginning, radioactive sources were sometimes used as convenient entangled photon sources, for experiments. The geiger counter counts the photons of such sources. Everyone has heard the click-click-click of the counter in science fiction movies, or apocalyptic ones. Each click is a photon being registered by the Geiger tube. So, a slow click-click-click is maybe not indicating very many of them. This is very fortuitous, because very many of them would destroy the things around them. So far only one thing produces them in big quantity: nuclear reactions, such as a hydrogen bomb.
But what if, following the recent advances in entangled photon technology, it became possible to generate large numbers of these high energy photons in an artificial way, without needing an actual hydrogen bomb explosion? Note that commercial entangled photon generation is not at all related to gamma rays. I’m just pointing out the fact that all technologies (not just entangled photon technologies), are on the exponential part of the curve now. Anything is possible.
Getting back to Mr. Geiger’s tube – a few clicks on the counter is not a lot to worry about – maybe. As the clicks start to roll into a hum though – the danger increases. As that Geiger counter hits a humming note, it’s really still not detecting a large number of photons, relative to the number of photons in sunlight. Maybe it’s hundreds or thousands? In comparison, when you take a walk on the beach, the sun is bombarding you with trillions of photons per square inch of your body. Thank goodness they are (except for a few) not of the type that constitute gamma rays. If they were gamma rays, every single cell in your body would be destroyed before you could reach the surf to splash water with your feet.
Your body would become a pool of jelly. Everything is photons.
Note: the author is an amateur photographer, and does not possess a degree in medicine or nuclear physics. All articles are his opinion, conjecture, or short night results.
A Storm Of Photons 