XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: jpolowin@sympatico.ca   
      
   On 2019-12-13 6:24 PM, David Johnston wrote:   
   > On 2019-12-12 11:10 a.m., Joel Polowin wrote:   
   >> Hypothesis: Creatures of Faerie live via a nuclear fission/fusion field.   
   >>   
   >> Logic: They are poisoned uniquely by the presence of matter that   
   >> contains no (or few) atoms that can be fused/split without loss of   
   >> energy.   
   >>   
   > I haven't heard of them having a vulnerability to say, gold.  Or even   
   > silver.   
      
   If we're going to run with my "theory", gold could (in principle) be   
   split to give energy.  Suppose we're splitting gold (element 79) to give   
   iron (element 26) and one other nucleus: that'll be iodine (element 53).   
   Let's go with the one stable isotope of gold, 197; that's what you'll   
   find in nature.  Mass = 196.966568662 atomic mass units.  The most   
   stable isotope of iron is Fe-56, mass = 55.934937475.  The only stable   
   isotope of iodine is I-127, mass = 126.904473.  That leaves 14 extra   
   neutrons, each with mass 1.00866491588.   
      
   Subtract all of those other items from the gold and you get a positive   
   value, 0.005849 mass units.  That corresponds to the amount of energy   
   that would result from the hypothetical conversion of that gold to   
   iron, iodine, and neutrons.  If you did this with 1 milligram of gold,   
   you'd get about 638 kcal of energy.  That's not counting the energy   
   of decomposition of the free neutrons.  If you want to get fancy, you   
   might be able to decompose the gold into iron, iodine, protons,   
   electrons, and antineutrinos, and get that extra bit of energy.  :-)   
      
   Joel   
   get   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)