Radioactivity

Facts from mineral science

Radioactivity, or better radioactive decay or nuclear disintegration is the process by which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by radiation. The ionizing radiation that is freed affects mineral matter and other atoms, so it poses an important health risk for organic living things, as it damages tissue and DNA in genes.

Radioactivity was discovered only in 1896 by Henri Becquerel and Marie Curie, after Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895.

Three of the most common types of decay are alpha, beta, and gamma decay, as electromagnetic fields can split radioactive emissions into three types of beams, whereby alpha particles carried a positive charge, beta particles carried a negative charge, and gamma rays were neutral. Mineral science relates these three types of radiation to the known forces in physics: the weak force is responsible for beta decay, the other two are governed by the electromagnetism and nuclear force.

Though radioactive decay is a random process at the level of single atoms, over a large number of identical atoms, the overall decay rate is expressed by decay constant such as 'half-life', which varies greatly.

There are 28 naturally occurring chemical elements on Earth that are radioactive. Well-known examples are uranium and thorium, but there also exist naturally occurring long-lived radioisotopes, such as potassium-40.

Spiritual science - a change of perspective

Mineral science starts from the study of matter, physical mineral matter, with laws of physics and mathematics. Rudolf Steiner pointed out (in the Light course GA320 of January 1920) that this relates to our current state of 'mineral consciousness'. With current contemporary waking consciousness Man is only fully awake to the mineral in thoughts, in the other faculties of I-consciousness of feeling and willing Man is asleep (see Schema FMC00.245). So, we study the effects of those domains through what ripples up into the domain of mineral matter.

Whereas Man's experience of light, sound and warmth belongs to the field that can be comprehended with sensory and thinking life; electricity and magnetism belongs to the world of Man's subconsciousness and the faculty of Willing (see eg Schema FMC00.213)

This reframing is key from an epistemological point of view, as laid out on Top five problems with current science#1 - Taking out the observer.

The reframing offers a mirror-complementary view: one can look at matter decaying, falling apart from it's mineral stable basis, but from another perspective matter is just as the result of static processes that appear as 'petrified'. So if one looks at the whole of nature as being part of a constant living dynamic, it is not dead and stable, but rather part of it - the mineral - appears to be dead and stable, to the degree of our current limited consciousness which acts as a bandpass filter (see also Cosmic fractal). Which is why Man feels comfortable functioning in the physical material world with waking consciousness.

Aspects

• the evolution from Earth has known a solidication from astral, to etheric, to airy, watery, and currently the mineral form and state (see eg Schema FMC00.172). In the future, the reverse process will take place, see Earth rounds perspective. Hence substance is turning back to the etheric, as the conditions on Earth change. This process can be studied by the lectures in Rudolf Steiner's Genesis cycle, and also through what happened with the separation of Sun and separation of Moon. See also: [[Mineral kingdom#[2] - How did physical mineral matter come into being?]]
• nuclear power plants on Earth (data 2023)
  • of a total of 437 worldwide, 84% or 366 are in the top 10 countries with more than 10 nuclear power plants. The leading countries are United states (93 for 21%), followed by France (56) and China (50). Then follow Russia, Japan, South Korea, India, Canada, UK and Ukraine. The other 71 plants are in 20 other countries.

Inspirational quotes

1905-10-05-GA093A

In earlier times these atoms became more and more solidified; now however they are becoming increasingly separated. Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more.

Lecture coverage and references

1905-10-05-GA093A

from RS Handbook:

The present task of the human being is the work on the mineral kingdom. “Now we are in the midst of this activity and in the course of the next races (main ages) the earth will have become completely transformed, so that eventually there will be no single atom on earth that has not been worked upon by Man. In former periods, these atoms became more and more solidified; now, however, they are becoming increasingly separated. Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more.”

quote A, see also Earth rounds perspective

Seven conditions of form (CoF) together make up a Condition of Life (CoL, or Round). At the present time the Earth is going through its fourth CoL and this is the mineral. During this time it is the task of mankind to work upon the mineral kingdom. A man is already working on the mineral kingdom when he takes a flint and hammers it into a wedge-shaped tool with which he makes other objects, when he transports rocks and builds pyramids out of the stones, when he makes tools out of metals, when he conducts electric current in a network over the earth; in all this man is working upon the mineral kingdom. Thus man puts into service the whole mineral kingdom. He makes the Earth into something entirely of his own devising. When the painter turns his mind to a combination of colours he is also working upon the mineral kingdom.

We are now in the midst of this activity, and in the course of the next epochs the Earth will have become completely transformed, so that eventually there will be no single atom on the earth that has not been worked upon by Man.

In earlier times these atoms became more and more solidified; now however they are becoming increasingly separated. Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more.

When the Fourth CoL comes to an end the entire mineral kingdom will have been worked upon by the hand of Man. When it has been completely worked through by Man, then, in order that the fruits of this work can be manifested, the Earth must pass over into an astral condition in which forms can develop. The Earth then passes over into a Mental Globe and then into the Higher Mental condition, the Arupic. It then disappears altogether out of these conditions into a shorter Pralaya. It then enters once more into a new Arupic condition, that of the next, the Fifth Round; then into a Rupic condition and then into an astral condition. After this it appears physically once more. Everything which man worked into the mineral kingdom during the Fourth Round reappears and grows up as the plant kingdom; for instance [the] Cologne cathedral will appear as a plant in the next Round.

1920-01-02-GA320

It was the radiations (or what appeared as such) from the negative electric pole, known as the cathode, which lent themselves especially to these experiments. They called them “cathode rays”. Herewith the first breach had, so to speak, been made in the old physical conceptions. The process in these Hittorf tubes (Hittorf had been the first to make them, then came Geissler) was evidently due to something of a material kind — though in a very finely-divided condition — shooting through space. Not that they thereby knew what it was; in any case they did not pretend to know what so-called “matter” is. But the phenomena indicated that this was something somehow identifiable with matter, — of a material nature.

Crookes therefore was convinced that this was a kind of material spray, showering through space. The old wave-theory was shaken. However, fresh experiments now came to light, which in their turn seemed inconsistent with Crookes's theory. Lenard in 1893 succeeded in diverting the so-called rays that issue from this pole and carrying them outward. He inserted a thin wall of aluminium and led the rays out through this. The question arose: can material particles go through a material wall without more ado? So then the question had to be raised all over again:

Is it really material particles showering through space, — or is it something quite different after all? In course of time the physicists began to realize that it was neither the one nor the other: neither of the old conceptions — that of ether-waves, or that of matter — would suffice us here. The Hittorf tubes were enabling them, as it were, to pursue the electricity itself along its hidden paths. They had naturally hoped to find waves, but they found none. So they consoled themselves with the idea that it was matter shooting through space. This too now proved untenable.

At last they came to the conclusion which was in fact emerging from many and varied experiments, only a few characteristic examples of which I have been able to pick out. In effect, they said: It isn't waves, nor is it simply a fine spray of matter. It is flowing electricity itself; electricity as such is on the move. Electricity itself is flowing along here, but in its movement and in relation to other things — say, to a magnet — it shews some properties like those of matter. Shoot a material cannonball through the air and let it pass a magnet, — it will naturally be diverted So too is electricity. This is in favour of its being of a material nature. On the other hand, in going through a plate of aluminium without more ado, it shews that it isn't just matter. Matter would surely make a hole in going through other matter. So then they said: This is a stream of electricity as such. And now this flowing electricity shewed very strange phenomena. A clear direction was indeed laid out for further study, but in pursuing this direction they had the strangest experiences. Presently they found that streams were also going out from the other pole, — coming to meet the cathode rays. The other pole is called the anode; from it they now obtained the rays known as “canal rays”. In such a tube, they now imagined there to be two different kinds of ray, going in opposite directions.

One of the most interesting things was discovered in the 1890's by Roentgen ... From the cathode rays he produced a modified form of rays, now known as Roentgen rays or X-rays. They have the effect of electrifying certain bodies, and also shew characteristic reactions with magnetic and electric forces. Other discoveries followed. You know the Roentgen rays have the property of going through bodies without producing a perceptible disturbance; they go through flesh and bone in different ways and have thus proved of great importance to Anatomy and Physiology.

Now a phenomenon arose, making it necessary to think still further. The cathode rays or their modifications, when they impinge on glass or other bodies, call forth a kind of fluorescence; the materials become luminous under their influence. Evidently, said the scientists, the rays must here be undergoing further modification. So they were dealing already with many different kinds of rays. Those that first issued directly from the negative pole, proved to be modifiable by a number of other factors. They now looked round for bodies that should call forth such modifications in a very high degree — bodies that should especially transform the rays into some other form, e.g. into fluorescent rays. In pursuit of these researches it was presently discovered that there are bodies — uranium salts for example — which do not have to be irradiated at all, but under certain conditions will emit rays in their turn, quite of their own accord. It is their own inherent property to emit such rays. Prominent among these bodies were the kind that contain radium, as it is called.

Very strange properties these bodies have. They ray-out certain lines of force — so to describe it — which can be dealt with in a remarkable way. Say that we have a radium-containing body here, in a little vessel made of lead; we can examine the radiation with a magnet. We then find one part of the radiation separating off, being deflected pretty strongly in this direction by the magnet, so that it takes this form (Figure IXc). Another part stays unmoved, going straight on in this direction, while yet another is deflected in the opposite direction. The radiation, then, contains three elements. They no longer had names enough for all the different kinds!

They therefore called the rays that will here be deflected towards the right, ß-rays; those that go straight on, γ-rays; and those are deflected in the opposite direction, α-rays.

[figure]

...

[Velocity]

Bringing a magnet near to the radiating body, studying these deflections and making certain computations, from the deflection one may now deduce the velocity of the radiation. The interesting fact emerges that

• the ß-rays have a velocity, say about nine-tenths the velocity of light,
• while the velocity of the α-rays is about one-tenth the velocity of light.

We have therefore these explosions of force, if we may so describe them, which can be separated-out and analyzed and then reveal very striking differences of velocity.

Now I remind you how at the outset of these lectures we endeavoured in a purely spiritual way to understand the formula, v = s/t. We said that the real thing in space is the velocity; it is velocity which justifies us in saying that a thing is real. Here now you see what is exploding as it were, forth from the radiating body, characterized above all by the varying intensity and interplay of the velocities which it contains.

Think what it signifies: in the same cylinder of force which is here raying forth, there is one element that wants to move nine times as fast as the other. One shooting force, tending to remain behind, makes itself felt as against the other that tends to go nine times as quickly. Now please pay heed a little to what the anthroposophists alone, we must suppose, have hitherto the right not to regard as sheer madness! Often and often, when speaking of the greatest activities in the universe which we can comprehend, we had to speak of differences in velocity as the most essential thing.

What is it brings about the most important things that play into the life of present time?

It is the different velocities with which the normal, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic spiritual activities work into one-another. It is that differences of velocity are there in the great spiritual streams to which the web and woof of the world is subjected. The scientific pathway which has opened out in the most recent times is compelling even physics — though, to begin with, unconsciously — to go into differences of velocity in a way very similar to the way spiritual science had to do for the great all-embracing agencies of cosmic evolution.

Now we have not yet exhausted all that rays forth from this radium-body. The effects shew that there is also a raying-forth of the material itself. But the material thus emanated proves to be radium no longer. It presently reveals itself to be helium for instance — an altogether different substance. Thus we no longer have the conservation, — we have the metamorphosis of matter.

The phenomena to which I have been introducing you, all of them take their course in what may be described as the electrical domain.

Moreover, all of them have one property in common. Their relation to ourselves is fundamentally different from that of the phenomena of sound or light for example, or even the phenomena of warmth. In light and sound and warmth we ourselves are swimming, so to speak, as was described in former lectures. The same cannot be said so simply of our relation to the electrical phenomena. We do not perceive electricity as a specific quality in the way we perceive light, for instance. Even when electricity is at last obliged to reveal itself, we perceive it by means of a phenomenon of light. This led to people's saying, what they have kept repeating: “There is no sense-organ for electricity in Man.” The light has built for itself in Man the eye — a sense-organ with which to see it. So has the sound, the ear. For warmth too, a kind of warmth-organ is built into Man. For electricity, they say, there is nothing analogous. We perceive electricity indirectly.

We do, no doubt; but that is all that can be said of it till you go forward to the more penetrating form of science which we are here at least inaugurating. In effect, when we expose ourselves to light, we swim in the element of light in such a way that we ourselves partake in it with our conscious life, or at least partially so. So do we in the case of warmth and in that of sound or tone. The same cannot be said of electricity.

[Threefold Man and TFW]

But now I ask you to remember what I have very often explained: as human beings we are in fact dual beings. That is however to put it crudely, for we are really threefold beings: beings of Thought, of Feeling and of Will. Moreover, as I have shewn again and again, it is only in our Thinking that we are really awake, whilst in our feelings we are dreaming and in our processes of will we are asleep — asleep even in the midst of waking life. We do not experience our processes of will directly. Where the essential Will is living, we are fast asleep.

And now remember too, what has been pointed out during these lectures.

Wherever in the formulae of physics we write m for mass, we are in fact going beyond mere arithmetic — mere movement, space and time. We are including what is no longer purely geometrical or kinematical, and as I pointed out, this also corresponds to the transition of our consciousness into the state of sleep. We must be fully clear that this is so.

Consider then this memberment of the human being; consider it with fully open mind, and you will then admit: Our experience of light, sound and warmth belongs — to a high degree at least, if not entirely — to the field which we comprise and comprehend with our sensory and thinking life. Above all is this true of the phenomena of light. An open-minded study of the human being shews that all these things are akin to our conscious faculties of soul.

On the other hand, the moment we go on to the essential qualities of mass and matter, we are approaching what is akin to those forces which develop in us when we are sleeping.

And we are going in precisely the same direction when we descend from the realm of light and sound and warmth into the realm of the electrical phenomena.

We have no direct experience of the phenomena of our own Will; all we are able to experience in consciousness is our thoughts about them. Likewise we have no direct experience of the electrical phenomena of Nature. We only experience what they deliver, what they send upward, to speak, into the realms of light and sound and warmth etc. For we are here crossing the same boundary as to the outer world, which we are crossing in ourselves when we descend from our thinking and idea-forming, conscious life into our life of Will.

All that is light, and sound, and warmth, is then akin to our conscious life, while all that goes on in the realms of electricity and magnetism is akin — intimately akin — to our unconscious life of Will.

Moreover the occurrence of physiological electricity in certain lower animals is but the symptom — becoming manifest somewhere in nature — of a quite universal phenomenon which remains elsewhere unnoticed. Namely, wherever Will is working through the metabolism, there is working something very similar to the external phenomena of electricity and magnetism.

When in the many complicated ways — which we have only gone through in the barest outline in today's lecture — when in these complicated ways we go down into the realm of electrical phenomena, we are in fact descending into the very same realm into which we must descend whenever we come up against the simple element of mass.

What are we doing then when we study electricity and magnetism?

We are then studying matter, in all reality. It is into matter itself that you are descending when you study electricity and magnetism. And what an English philosopher has recently been saying is quite true — very true indeed. Formerly, he says, we tried to imagine in all kinds of ways, how electricity is based on matter. Now on the contrary we must assume, what we believe to be matter, to be in fact no more than flowing electricity. We used to think of matter as composed of atoms; now we must think of the electrons, moving through space and having properties like those we formerly attributed to matter.

In fact our scientists have taken the first step — they only do not yet admit it — towards the overcoming of matter. Moreover they have taken the first step towards the recognition of the fact that when in nature we pass on from the phenomena of light, sound and warmth of those of electricity, we are descending — in the realm of nature — into phenomena which are related to the former ones as is the Will in us to the life of Thought. This is the gist and conclusion of our studies for today, which I would fain impress upon your minds. After all, my main purpose in these lectures is to tell you what you will not find in the text-books. The text-book knowledge I may none the less bring forward, is only given as a foundation for the other.

1920-01-03-GA320

The period when Science thought that it had golden proofs of the universality of waves and undulations was followed, as we say, by a new time. It was no longer possible to hold fast to the old wave-theories. The last three decades have in fact been revolutionary. One can imagine nothing more revolutionary in any realm than this most recent period has been in Physics. Impelled by the very facts that have not emerged, Physics has suffered no less a loss than the concept of matter itself in its old form. Out of the old ways of thinking, as we have seen, the phenomena of light had been brought into a very near relation to those of electricity and magnetism. Now the phenomena produced by the passage of electricity through tubes in which the air or gas was highly rarefied, led scientists to see in the raying light itself something like radiating electricity. I do not say that they were right, but this idea arose. It came about in this way:— The electric current until then had always been hidden as it were in wires, and one had little more to go on than Ohm's Law. Now one was able, so to speak, to get a glimpse of the electricity itself, for here it leaves the wire, jumps to the distant pole, and is no longer able as it were to conceal its content in the matter through which it passes.

The phenomena proved complicated. As we say yesterday, manifold types of radiation emerged. The first to be discovered were the so-called cathode rays, issuing from the negative pole of the Hittorf tube and making their way through the partial vacuum. In that they can be deflected by magnetic forces, they prove akin to what we should ordinarily feel to be material. Yet they are also evidently akin to what we see where radiations are at work. This kinship comes out most vividly when we catch the rays (or whatsoever it is that is issuing from the negative electric pole) upon a screen or other object, as we should do with light. Light throws a shadow. So do these radiations. Yet in this very experiment we are again establishing the near relation of these rays to the ordinary element of matter. For you can imagine that a bombardment is taking place from here (as we say yesterday, this is how Crookes thinks of the cathode rays). The “bombs” do not get through the screen which you put in the way; the space behind the screen is protected. This can be shewn by Crookes's experiment, interposing a screen in the way of the cathode rays.

We will here generate the electric current; we pass it through this tube in which the air is rarefied. It has its cathode or negative pole here, its anode or positive pole here. Sending the electricity through the tube, we are now getting the so-called cathode rays. We catch them on a screen shaped like a St. Andrew's cross. We let the cathode rays impinge on it, and on the other side you will see something like a shadow of the St. Andrew's cross, from which you may gather that the cross stops the rays. Observe it clearly, please. Inside the tube is the St. Andrew's cross. The cathode rays go along here; here they are stopped by the cross; the shadow of the cross becomes visible upon the wall of the vessel behind it. I will now bring the shadow which is thus made visible into the field of a magnet. I beg you to observe it now. You will find the shadow influenced by the magnetic field. You see then, just as I might attract a simple bit of iron with a magnet, so too, what here emerges like a kind of shadow behaves like external matter. It behaves materially.

Here then we have a type of rays which Crookes regards as “radiant matter” — as a form of matter neither solid, liquid or gaseous but even more attenuated, — revealing also that electricity itself, the current of electricity, behaves like simple matter. We have, as it were, been trying to look at the current of flowing electricity as such, and what we see seems very like the kind of effects we are accustomed to see in matter.

I will now shew you, what was not possible yesterday, the rays that issue from the other pole and that are called “canal rays”. You can distinguish the rays from the cathode, going in this direction, shimmering in a violet shade of colour, and the canal rays coming to meet them, giving a greenish light. The velocity of the canal rays is much smaller.

Finally I will shew you the kind of rays produced by this apparatus: they are revealed in that the glass becomes fluorescent when we send the current through. This is the kind of rays usually made visible by letting them fall upon a screen of barium platinocyanide. They have the property of making the glass intensely fluorescent. Please observe the glass. You see it shining with a very strong, greenish-yellow, fluorescent light. The rays that shew themselves in this way are the Roentgen rays or X-rays, mentioned yesterday. We observe this kind too, therefore.

Now I was telling you how in the further study of these things it appeared that certain entities, regarded as material substances, emit sheaves of rays — rays of three kinds, to begin with. We distinguished them as Alpha, Beta, and Gamma rays (cf. the Figure IXc).

They shew distinct properties. Moreover, yet another thing emerges from these materials, known as radium etc. It is the chemical element itself which - as it were - gives itself up completely. In sending out its radiation, it is transmuted. It changes into helium, for example; so it becomes something quite different from what it was before.

We have to do no longer with stable and enduring matter but with a complete metamorphosis of phenomena.

Taking my start from these facts, I now want to unfold a point of view which may become for you an essential way, not only into these phenomena but into those of Nature generally.

The Physics of the 19th century chiefly suffered from the fact that the inner activity, with which Man sought to follow up the phenomena of Nature, was not sufficiently mobile in the human being himself. Above all, it was not able really to enter the facts of the outer world. In the realm of light, colours could be seen arising, but man had not enough inner activity to receive the world of colour into his forming of ideas, into his very thinking.

Unable any longer to think the colours, scientists replaced the colours, which they could not think, by what they could, — namely by what was purely geometrical and kinematical — calculable waves in an unknown ether. This “ether” however, as you must see, proved a tricky fellow. Whenever you are on the point of catching it, it evades you. It will not answer the roll-call.

In these experiments, for instance, revealing all these different kinds of rays, the flowing electricity has become manifest to some extent, as a form of phenomenon in the outer world, — but the “ether” refuses to turn up. In fact it was not given to the 19th-century thinking to penetrate into the phenomena. But this is just what physics will require from now on. We have to enter the phenomena themselves with human thinking. Now to this end certain ways will have to be opened up — most of all for the realm of physics.

You see, the objective powers of the World, if I may put it so, — those that come to the human being rather than from him — have been obliging human thought to become rather more mobile (albeit, in a certain sense, from the wrong angle). What men regarded as most certain and secure, that they could most rely on, was that they could explain the phenomena so beautifully by means of arithmetic and geometry — by the arrangement of lines, surfaces and bodily forms in space.

...

[long section - see lecture text]

...

All this elaboration of the outer world — optical, acoustic and even thermal to some extent (the phenomena of warmth) — by means of geometrical, arithmetical and kinematical thought-forms, is in point of fact a dreaming about nature. Cool and sober as it may seem, it is a dream — a dreaming while awake. Moreover, until we recognize it for what it is, we shall not know where we are in our natural science, so that our science gives us reality. What people fondly believe to be the most exact of sciences, is modern mankind's dream of sature.

But it is different when we go down from the phenomena of light and sound, via the phenomena of warmth, into the realm we are coming into with these rays and radiations, belonging as they do to the science of electricity. For we then come into connection with what in outer Nature is truly equivalent to the Will in Man. The realm of Will in Man is equivalent to this whole realm of action of the cathode rays, canal rays, Roentgen rays. Alpha, Beta, Gamma-rays and so on. It is from this very realm — which, once again, is in the human being the realm of Will, — it is from this that there arises what we possess in our mathematics, in our geometry, in our ideas of movement. These therefore are the realms, in nature and in Man, which we may truly think of as akin to one-another. However, human thinking has in our time not yet gone far enough, really to think its way into these realms. Man of today can dream quite nicely, thinking out wave-theories and the like, but he is not yet able to enter with real mathematical perception into that realm of phenomena which is akin to the realm of human Will, in which geometry and arithmetic originate. For this, our arithmetical, algebraical and geometrical thinking must in themselves become more saturated with reality. It is along these lines that physical science should now seek to go.

Nowadays, if you converse with physicists who were brought up in the golden age of the old wave-theory, you will find many of them feeling a little uncanny about these new phenomena, in regard to which ordinary methods of calculation seem to break down in so many places.

In recent times the physicists have had recourse to a new device. Plain-sailing arithmetical and geometrical methods proving inadequate, they now introduce a kind of statistical method. Taking their start more from the outer empirical data, they have developed numerical relations also empirical in kind. They then use the calculus of probabilities. Along these lines it is permissible to say: By all means let us calculate some law of Nature; it will hold good throughout a certain series, but then there comes a point where it no longer works.

[editor: note this lecture of 1920 is just years before De Broglie and Schrodinger coinded the foundations of quantum physics]

1958 - Walther Cloos

in The Living Earth (EN version of second DE edition of 1970), Ch 11: Natural radioactivity and the process of germination

With the sedimentary rocks we have been studying a stage of develop­ment that we can only describe as one of breakdown and disintegra­tion. This process which we can still observe daily in the mountains, and hourly in the lowlands in our streams and rivers, embraces the second half of the total history of our planet. We have tried to sketch in broad outlines the first half of this history as the building up of the past life-stages of the Earth. This process ceased some tens of thousands of years ago and we find ourselves now in the age of the Earth which in man corresponds to the years just past the middle of his life.

• The middle of man's life is around his 35th year. From this time on declining forces begin increasingly to take effect. This however is necessary to enable him to achieve his full human maturity. If he has not achieved physically and spiritually by then what he should have, in order to develop it further in his later life, he can no longer make it up later. As the physical growth forces of youth begin to wane, it is only what man has been able to transform into spiritual qualities that allows him to mature rightly. As man from middle life onwards has consciously 'taken himself in hand' in order not to get 'stuck in a rut', so he must learn consciously to counter the dying forces of the Earth in order to preserve it for some time still in a habitable condition.

We need not fear an ice or heat death for the ageing Earth: the future of the Earth runs absolutely parallel to human development. When finally the Earth reaches whatever end is in store for it, then man as a spiritual being will have freed himself from his present earthly needs and will be able to pass on to a different state of existence. At present however man thinks very little about countering the disintegrating forces of the Earth. On the contrary he makes increasing use of these forces. What, for thousands of years was done only by the weathering of the rocks, he carries on by mining, deforestation, altering of water courses and unnatural methods of plant and animal husbandry. 'The Rape of the Earth' is what the sociologist and economist Alfred Weber once called our present world. Man took the last, very dangerous step towards the disintegra­tion of the Earth when he began to make use of the powers of the disintegration of matter in radioactivity.

We do not mean to criticise the achievements of science and tech­nology because they act destructively on the life of the Earth. Such advance is necessary because from the negative results of this 'progress' we ourselves must learn to act positively. In order to do this we must ask what really is natural radioactivity?

There can be the most diverse answers. We shall attempt to find one that can be read from the natural phenomena themselves, without reference to any existing theories on the nature of radio­activity. Naturally there are other possibilities but we shall leave these aside for the present.

Among the many chemical elements there are a few which, for some 50 years, have been known to give off various radiations. These invisible radiations produce either electrical phenomena (Beta and Gamma rays) or are perceptible through light effects caused in certain other substances (Alpha particles). The principle elements which give off these radiations are uranium and thorium. Also for example, the wide-spread element potassium (so necessary for life) and the rare elements rubidium and samarium have radioactive properties, though very much less than uranium and thorium.

The radiations of these elements are accompanied by the break­down of the original element which is transformed into a series of radioactive substances of varying length of life and (in the case of uranium and thorium) ends up as lead. This end product of the breakdown is no longer radioactive. A further end product of this uranium and thorium breakdown is the inert gas helium which likewise is no longer active. The radioactivity of these elements i.e. their continuing breakdown, cannot be influenced by any process of chemistry or physics. One can heat a piece of uranium to melting point, or cool it to minus 200°C, or subject it to a pressure of 1000 atmospheres — its breakdown is not hastened nor retarded, neither can it be halted by any means.

These strongly radioactive elements uranium and thorium are native to the oldest primal rocks of the Earth — the granites and pegmatites. In these rocks they are extremely finely distributed and only in relatively few places are they sufficiently concentrated to be quarried or mined. Through the mechanical breakdown of rocks, before they had really hardened, uranium and thorium found their way into younger rocks such as the famous Carnotite sandstones of Colorado. The main sources of uranium and thorium for the production of atomic energy are however to be found almost exclusively in granites and pegmatites.

Today over 100 minerals are known containing uranium and about 50 containing thorium. In the radioactive minerals which one might call original (i.e. from which most of the others have originated —minerals like pitchblende, thorianite, thorite, broggerite, cleveite and some others) there occurs something that is only found in radio­active minerals. The crystals, whether embedded in rock or free­standing, while outwardly appearing fully formed, within have the appearance of solidified jelly-like or pitchy substance (hence the name pitchblende). If, with the help of X-rays, one makes a diagram of the lattice of these 'crystals', it transpires that in their interior there is no crystalline structure present. In mineralogy these crystals are termed isotropic. If one heats such isotropic crystals they glow and the lattice, that according to the outer form should be there, now appears under X-ray examination.

We have the remarkable fact that these minerals, which once upon a time were crystalline, through their radioactive decomposition became jelly-like or colloidal. In fact these radioactive minerals, like all minerals, originally crystallised out of a gelatinous condition. This can be recognised from the outer form of the mineral.

Radioactivity reversed the process and they reverted inside to an amorphous gel. The fact that such isotropic minerals when heated re-establish a crystalline structure is further proof of the untenability of the primal molten rock theory.

The occurence of radioactive minerals in the primal rocks and this isotropism which we have just described, are, in our opinion, important basic phenomena which lead towards the understanding of one aspect of radioactivity.

[image of the plant]

In order to do so however we must turn aside to an apparently unrelated subject — the process of germination in the plant, so that bylooking at present day life-processes we recapture something of the living Earth of the past.

Seed formation is an extraordinarily involved process, part of which resembles a sort of mineralisation.

When the seed in the ovary has reached the stage when the whole of it is still green and the ripening process is just about to begin, it is called 'milky'. The first garden peas we enjoy in the Spring are in this condition, as is also the Griinkern' of Southern Germany, made from unripe spelt-wheat. The unripe milky seeds are not viable if they are harvested and dried, for they lack a vital process which only takes place during ripening. In the milky seed the embrio seedling is fully formed, but the nutritive substances which accompany it in the form of starch, protein and fat are still in the colloidal or jelly-like state. On examination of such a seed it is easy to determine that it contains as yet very little mineral matter.

During the sub­sequent ripening there is not only the obvious drying of the seed, but starch and protein begin to form and gradually harden out of the jelly-like colloidal state. Starch forms typical starch granules, with their fine inner layers and round or many-sided shapes. Protein congeals to real crystals which are known as crystal­loids. (For example the aleurone granules of our cereals whose nutritive value is so important.)

Together with this drying and ripening, something else occurs. Starch and protein bodies become impregnated with certain minerals such as calcium, magnesia, potash, phosphoric acid, silica, etc. One can thus characterise ripening as a sort of mineralising of the seed. Not only its substance but its whole inner structure becomes rock-like or earthy. This is necessary because the seedling which remains unaffected by the drying process will later, when it germinates, need this 'earthiness' of the seed.

Every seed, in. ripening, builds for itself its own little Earth which supports the early life of the seedling until it finds its union with the greater Earth.

If one sows a ripe seed in Spring it begins at first to swell under the influence of warmth and moisture and, after a few days, the first thing to appear is the radicle. Before the radicle pushes through however, something important has taken place in the nutritive sub­stance of the seed. Starch and protein have changed their structured mineralised condition and reverted to a jelly-like state.

The new jelly-like state of the germinating seed bears a great resemblance to the milky state, but is not this time followed by ripening. The nutritive substance of the seed disintegrates during germination, into water, carbon dioxide, ammonia and salts. We will not discuss here how the intermediate stages of this breakdown affect the seedling.

This gradual process of disintegration of nutritive substance and the associated root growth is accompanied by something that is not outwardly visible. The germinating seed sends out radiations.

The exis­tence of these germination and growth radiations was discovered by biological and physical tests. The first to describe this accurately was the Russian scientist Gurwitsch. These radiations are closely related to ultra-violet rays in that they can pass through quartz crystals but not through ordinary glass. They have a favourable effect on the growth of other living organisms and plant organs. It is probable that the traditional custom of attaching a grain of corn to a cutting to be struck is not only connected with what are known as growth substances (auxins) but also with these germination radiations.

Thus we have, in the processes taking place between the 'milky' state and germination, a true reflection of these other processes that we encounter within the mineral world in natural radioactive compounds.

[induction step]

If we remember what was said in Chapter 3 regarding the life processes that led to the formation of granite and kindred rocks, and then consider this ripening and germination of seeds, a very significant picture emerges. Following Rudolf Steiner's suggestion we tried to show that these primal rocks originated out of the tremendous, though at that time undifferentiated, flowering stage of the whole Earth-being. Looked at in this way we might say that the nature of the old crystalline rocks has something in common with a seed. If one considers that these rocks constitute something like 90% of the mass of the Earth, the idea can arise that the Earth as a totality is a giant seed. This 'seed' Earth ripened during the time which elapsed between the first gel condition of the rocks and their present solid state.

This hardening of the rocks is however a very gradual process and at different times and in different places alternates with softer conditions. There is evidence that at the times of the great mountain range upheavals the rock mass in certain areas was still in, or had reverted to, a pliable condition; for otherwise the crystals and minerals in the hollow cavities would have been completely crushed. Further evidence of late hardening-up of the crystalline rocks is to be found in the cultic buildings of earlier civilisations where for example in Egypt and Peru, without iron tools, stones were accurately dressed from basalt, diorite, granite, etc. These buildings date from between 3000 BC and 1000 AD.

Hardening, together with mineral formation, continued right into the Christian Era but the processes of disintegration, weathering and mechanical break-down of rocks began much earlier. It began from the time when no further new rocks were formed as a result of living processes.

The minerals which today are radioactive were present in the primal rocks during this whole process of hardening. They are evidently a sort of ferment which, extremely finely distributed, works towards the dissolution of the 'Earth as a seed'. One might say that the 'Earth seed' is beginning to 'germinate' so that out of this dissolution a new future existence may arise. We will not discuss here the nature of this existence. In Rudolf Steiner's works there is much to be found about it.

[close of chapter]

We will pass on to something else. From Rudolf Steiner's inves­tigations it appears that before our present epoch there were two other great cultural epochs which have disappeared without trace.

• In the older of these, the Lemurian epoch, the conditions of existence were completely different. Man still had the capacity to influence the form of the animal. He had power over the reproductive forces of animals. The Lemurian epoch disappeared through the misuse of these powers.
• In the succeeding Atlantean epoch, on a continent between Europe and America, man had the power to work creatively on the plant world. He had control over the germinating and growth forces of plants which he could use for technical purposes. The Atlantean continent and its civilisation perished through the misuse of these forces between the 11th and 8th millenia B.C.

We have to thank these two prehistoric epochs for our domestic animals and food plants. Our own culture is based entirely on the mastery of the mineral kingdom.

Now, however, after the discovery of atomic energy, which is based on the natural radioactivity of certain minerals, our epoch begins to make use of the equivalent in the minerals of the 'powers of germination.' When these forces become misused then our civilisation too will perish. By the time this happens man must have reached new levels of existence. Disintegration, destruction and death are the foundations of new life.

wikipedia

Alpha decay is observed only in heavier elements of atomic number 52 (tellurium) and greater, with the exception of beryllium-8 (which decays to two alpha particles). The other two types of decay are observed in all the elements. Lead, atomic number 82, is the heaviest element to have any isotopes stable (to the limit of measurement) to radioactive decay. Radioactive decay is seen in all isotopes of all elements of atomic number 83 (bismuth) or greater. Bismuth-209, however, is only very slightly radioactive, with a half-life greater than the age of the universe; radioisotopes with extremely long half-lives are considered effectively stable for practical purposes.

Discussion

Note 1 - Gurwitsch radiation (draft WIP)

adapted from wikipedia

Alexander G. Gurwitsch (1874–1954) was a Russian medical scientist who originated the morphogenetic field theory and discovered the biophoton.

In 1923, he first observed biophotons or ultra-weak biological photon emissions, weak electromagnetic waves detected in the ultra-violet range of the spectrum. Gurwitsch named the phenomenon mitogenetic radiation, since he believed that this light radiation allowed the morphogenetic field to control embryonic development.

His published observations, which related that cell proliferation of an onion was accelerated by directing these rays down a tube, brought him great attention. Some 500 attempts at replication, however, produced overwhelmingly negative results, so that the idea was neglected for decades until it commanded some renewed interest in the later 20th century. However the furore brought Gurwitsch an international reputation that led to several European lecture tours.

His work influenced that of Paul Alfred Weiss (1898-1989) in particular. William Seifriz (1888-1955) regarded the existence of Gurwitsch rays as experimentally proven.

1. Gurwitsch AG. Die Natur des spezifischenErregers der Zellteilung. Arch Entw Mech Org . 1923;100:11-40.
2. Gurwitsch AG, Gurwitsch LD. Twenty years of mitogenetic radiation: Emergence, development and perspectives. Uspekhi Sovremennoi Biologii. 1943;16:305-334.

https://www.longdom.org/open-access/consideration-for-initial-pulse-of-germination-54468.html

The ultra-weak radiation from living cells has an influence on the cell renewal in tissue association. Here, the energy of electromagnetic wave from infrared range to UV-light plays a special role. The characteristics of the physical properties of water at the interface of hydrophilic surfaces, the so-called Exclusion Zones, indicate that an energy reserve is formed in this region. There is an energy input that results in an energy output in the direction of the biological material. These two observations the ultra-weak radiation from living cells and the physics of Exclusion Zones, lead to the conclusion that this is a physically energetic process that is formulated as a hypothesis to trigger germination.

Related pages

• The nature of atoms
• Force substance representation
• The two etheric streams
• Three mothers

References and further reading

• Walter Russell: Atomic Suicide?” (1957)
• Georg Blattmann:
  • Strahlende Materie : Atomenergie und die Zukunft der Erde . Das wahre Geheimnis der Materieverwandlung (1979)
  • Radioaktivität - Die Erde offenbart ihr Geheimnis (1988)
• Michael Jones: 'Nuclear energy : a spiritual perspective' (1983)
• Various authers: 'Das problem der Kernenergie und der Radioaktiven Schädigung von Mensch und Welt : Fakten-Analysen-Perspektiven' (Die Drei special issue 56)(1986)
  • Johannes Kühl: Die radioaktive Strahlung und ihre künstliche Erzeugung
  • Thomas McKeen: Die Wirkung der Radioaktivität auf den Menschen. Schädigungen des Lebens
  • Wolfgang Schad: Zur charakteristik der Radioaktivität und die geschichtliche Dimension von Tschernobyl
  • Bodo Hamprecht: Die äußere - und innere Katastrophe um die Kernenergie
  • Stefan Leber: Sozial-Unverträglichkeit der Atomwirtschaft. Eine aktuelle Buch-Besprechung
  • Christoph Lindenberg: Radioaktivität und Presse-Inaktivität. Ein Kommentar über unzuverlässige Nachrichten
  • Stationen des Atomzeitalters. Die schweren Unfälle seit 1948