this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (3 children)

I genuinely don't understand how uranium can exist a priori in this argument but lead not? I might be missing something.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago

The original post only gave half the explanation. It's not that lead exists in general, it's that lead exists within zircon crystals.

Under normal circumstances that would be impossible, zircon crystals strongly reject lead atoms as they form. There's no way to stuff lead into the crystal lattice in the quantity we find them there. But uranium and zircon go together just fine, we just have to wait for it to decay into lead. The trouble is it takes ~4.5 billion years for just half of those uranium atoms to turn into lead. So any zircon crystal we find with half as much lead as uranium must be roughly that old

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 hours ago

Yeah, it’s not at all a compelling argument.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Isn't it more about being able the view the whole life cycle of lead, which takes more than 4000 years.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

"God put all of that there, and then made it work to ensure we had quality lead gasoline, pipes and paint to poison our brains with cause freedom."

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Is that what were doing now? Regurgitating stereotypical insults on a post where the "pro science" side dropped the ball and leaned on a ridiculously stupid misunderstanding to disprove something stupider?

You all fucking disappoint me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Who do you think you are? No one cares. ACAB, and religion is bullshit.