[Pseudoscience-is-malarkey (OP)]

Any thoughts?

[Bored chemist]

Any thoughts?

Nope; no further thoughts would happen.

[Kryptid]

The Earth would vanish in a catastrophic explosion. The only isotope that is stable with zero neutrons is protium (hydrogen-1). I'd imagine almost every nucleus beyond hydrogen would decay in less than a second.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

We also have to ask, what did happen to the neutrons?  By all rights they can't just disappear without leaving something else behind.  If they were suddenly converted into energy then we have a catastrophic event before we even to begin to worry about unstable nuclei that may be left behind.

[Kryptid]

We also have to ask, what did happen to the neutrons?  By all rights they can't just disappear without leaving something else behind.  If they were suddenly converted into energy then we have a catastrophic event before we even to begin to worry about unstable nuclei that may be left behind.

This is a good point. They can't disappear into nothingness, but something akin to that could potentially happen. There is a finite probability that a particle will quantum tunnel to a different location if that location puts it in a lower energy state. So it's not impossible that every neutron in the Earth could simultaneously quantum tunnel somewhere else (maybe into a black hole or the Sun's core). What is impossible, however, is to properly convey with words just how ludicrously unlikely that is.

[jeffreyH]

Everything would be hydrogen-1. The hydrogen gas would be drawn together by gravity and stars would be born. New neutrons would be created in these stars. And they all lived happily ever after.

[Bored chemist]

Everything would be hydrogen-1

Do you mean hydride ions or what?
If so, why?

[jeffreyH]

Everything would be hydrogen-1

Do you mean hydride ions or what?
If so, why?

Well, for a start we are talking about a bizarre situation. All the neutrons have gone. You aren't going to get ²He as it is too short lived. So the only thing left is hydrogen, in molecular form. Unless there is something I have missed?

[Bored chemist]

So the only thing left is hydrogen, in molecular form.

So why write this?
 

hydrogen-1

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Unless there's some magic which removes a lot of energy from the system, it's not going to be molecular, but ionised and very hot.

[jeffreyH]

So the only thing left is hydrogen, in molecular form.

So why write this?
 

hydrogen-1

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Unless there's some magic which removes a lot of energy from the system, it's not going to be molecular, but ionised and very hot.

Wow, calm down. You might burst a blood vessel.

[Bored chemist]

You forgot to answer the question.

[Eternal Student]

Hi all.

Can I ask a minor question or discuss a small thing?  If this gets too long, feel free to move it elsewhere (another thread etc.).

Concerning reply #4 by Kryptid where quantum tunneling was mentioned.
 

There is a finite probability that a particle will quantum tunnel to a different location.......(etc.)....

   Tunneling often involves making a measurement of a particle's location and discovering that it seems to have moved somewhere else from where it previously was.  This seemingly having happened despite some potential barrier between the two locations, i.e. a region of space in which the particle could never be found.
    If I've understood the situation correctly, simply finding that all the neutrons that were associated with atoms on earth are momentarily located in the sun at the time an observation was made, is not enough to be certain that the neutrons won't still be associated with the atoms on earth.  There would need to be some interaction involving those neutrons and something in the sun, so that there was a permanent change in the wave function of the entire system and the neutrons are no longer associated with the atoms on earth.

    This is complicated, so I would like to consider a simpler example:
There is a laboratory at the bottom of my road.  They keep some sodium under oil so that it doesn't react with any water (e.g. water vapour in the air).  However, we know that regarding one of their sodium atoms as a Quantum Mechanical system, it's outer electron occupies a 3s orbital and so it isn't really confined to a small region around the nucleus.  There is a small, very small chance, that this outer electron would be found up here at my house right at the moment when I turn the tap on in my kitchen sink.  Let's say this electron comes into contact (or close proximity) with water molecules from my tap.  Is this enough to make that sodium atom react?  After all, chemical reactions only involve interactions between the electrons, the location of the sodium nucleus hardly seems to matter.
   I suspect the answer is no - the system should really be considered as one giant quantum mechanical system with one wave function.  Turning the tap on may have changed the Hamiltonian for the system slightly and this will change the corresponding wave function for the entire system slightly.  Now, it's not easy to separate the wave function just for the electron that was associated with the sodium atom but that is what we have to try and do to return to some approximation of what happens that is based on chemistry and particles.  Our best approximations would show that, if the 3s electron from the sodium atom stayed up at my house chemically bound to something here, then this would result in a large separation of positive and negative charges that were initially much closer together.  As such the new wave function would not be favoured and should not arise as a solution with the new Hamiltonian.  So the sodium atom from the laboratory doesn't react with the water in my tap.  It's not enough that the electron was located here, the physical location of the electron had little to do with why a chemical reaction would happen.  The chemical reaction would tend to proceed only if a permanent change in the wave function describing that electron was favoured.
    Returning now to the situation described by Kryptid, with all of earth's neutrons tunneling into the sun... well, is it enough that the neutrons were found there at some instant of time?  Don't we have to find some reason to show that they are no longer associated with atoms on earth?

[Kryptid]

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Protium. Hydrogen-1 is a perfectly acceptable way of writing that.

[jeffreyH]

Well, also you can't have hydrogen-2 (deuterium) or hydrogen-3 (tritium) because there are no neutrons. Also, you don't have helium because ²he isn't stable. You also don't have the same density or pressure as at the time of the BB so no big bang nucleosynthesis. If you notice I also said "And they all lived happily ever after". Meaning it was meant in jest. Eventually the whole mess will cool down and gravity will take over. I just didn't think it was worth writing a thesis to explain it.

[Kryptid]

 Tunneling often involves making a measurement of a particle's location

Not really. Tunneling is a passive phenomenon. It is responsible for alpha decay, for example (an alpha particle tunnels out of an unstable nucleus). We don't have to do anything to uranium in order to make it decay. It happens by itself.

[Bored chemist]

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Protium. Hydrogen-1 is a perfectly acceptable way of writing that.

Thanks.
It's good that someone answered.
Odd that it wasn't the guy who I asked twice- the guy who actually wrote it..

Do you mean hydride ions or what?

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

[jeffreyH]

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Protium. Hydrogen-1 is a perfectly acceptable way of writing that.

Thanks.
It's good that someone answered.
Odd that it wasn't the guy who I asked twice- the guy who actually wrote it..

Do you mean hydride ions or what?

What's the "-1" meant to mean?

Are you seriously still banging on about this?

[jeffreyH]

Well, for a start, the question didn't ask about neutrons decaying. It asked about them disappearing. So yeah maybe it is magic. So ridiculous question deserves ridiculous answers. Unless of course you are the new Paul Daniels and with a swish of your wand, a pirouette from your lovely assistant and a triumphant cry of "that's magic" you actually performed this experiment ... Of course I know what a proton is. Did you think that was a killer put down? Are you running out of trolls to play with? Don't cry. I'm sure more will turn up.

[Eternal Student]

Hi.

Not really. Tunneling is a passive phenomenon. It is responsible for alpha decay, for example (an alpha particle tunnels out of an unstable nucleus). We don't have to do anything to uranium in order to make it decay. It happens by itself.

    Thanks Kryptid, although I think you're dodging the question a bit.  I'm still uncertain if there should be reason why the neutrons would be considered to be associated with the sun, simply finding them located there for a moment may not be enough.  The alpha particle decay situation you have discussed is interesting but if I've understood QM correctly, the wave function for the nucleons would show both states were possible:  There will be an eigenstate where the original Uranium nucleus is intact and also one where it has decayed and there is a separate alpha particle.  Using the Copenhagen interpretation, the weights of each eigenstate are not adjusted until some observation(s) are made.  These observation could take many different forms and could just be an interaction with something else (for example a Geiger counter clicks).  There is a minor issue here with what is an "observation":  In QM an observation could be defined as a measurement of a quantity that arises as an eigenvalue of an appropriate operator on the Hilbert space of the wave functions.  I'm not considering an "observation" as something so rigorously defined but just as something we can measure.  If we could make a more general observation on the Uranium atom system, for example if we just had some way to count the total number of protons and neutrons in the system, then this does not favour one eigenstate (decayed or not decayed) from the other.  So I guess what I'm asking is - what sort of observation is it if the neutrons were found to be located in the sun for an instant, is it one that eliminates or favours one eigenstate for the wavefunction of the nucleons?
   Is it possible that the neutrons (from earth's atoms) could be momentarily located in the sun BUT still correspond to an eigenstate where they are associated with the atoms on earth?   (Please note:  I don't know, I am asking not telling).  The atoms back on earth shouldn't care where the neutrons were found for a moment, only that in QM terms the wave function still shows that the neutrons are their neutrons.  I have studied QM for electrons but not for nucleons.  I don't know if it is possible to express the Hilbert space of wavefunctions for nucleons in position basis and I still wouldn't know if making an observation on their position favours the wavefunction being in one state rather than another when it is expressed in some other basis (e.g. being associated with the atoms on earth or with the atoms in the sun).
     This is a question open to all.  I seem to recall one of the moderators saying they hated misconceptions in QM (was that @Halc )?

[Bored chemist]

It would be much easier to memorise the periodic table.