Re: Strictly OT - conworlding with 92% or thereabouts commonality with current universe

John Vertical wrote:
(quoting me):
>> That's interesting. Have you made up any isotopic abundance tables?
>
> Well, as I said it's not too far developed. I have some preliminary
> stability tables, and only in terms of ±stable & local peaks, not
> actual nuclear binding energies; and even when I do get those
> sorted out, getting from them to abundances is going to take some
> stello-evolutionarics.
I like that word.
But maybe you don't need it. I found once that as long as you have
stability data, you can calculate neutron capture cross sections
reasonably accurately without much effort, and then you can get
pretty realistic abundance distributions by assuming a high, constant
flux for a reasonable given time.

>> Do nuclei in your conworld have any shell structure?
>
> Not planning to go too much into that, as this is all operating on the
> principle that QCD > nucleus stability (which is just about the
> only thing that really matters) is mostly a black box. But since
> all the extant stability peaks are at multiples of 4, I'm thinking
> of having mine at multiples of 3 (excusing 6, obviously.)
I think the stability peaks we have at 2, 8, 20, 28, 50, 82 and 126
(not all multiples of 4, but maybe you are thinking of protons and
neutrons together) lend some charm and interest to the structure of
our current world, so I would recommend something similar for
alternative ones.

Of alternative chemistries the most interesting one I've heard about
is the one in Flatland, the 2-dimensional conworld. I think it was in
Scientific American I read an article detailing Flatland chemistry
developed from solving Schrödinger equations and such for 2
dimensions. I should be able to find the article if you are interested.

LEF

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