[NewCandle] Nick's new pics

[Keith Nagel]

Jones writes:
>it might help to calibrate the setup with a sample where Al is
>plated with Ag in a thin enough layer that guarantees
>seeing both in approx equal peaks. Heck you could
>probably just rub a silver spoon over the Al a few
>times, no?

Best thing to do is to dissolve a bit of silver nitrate in water,
and dip your aluminum sample in that for a short time. The displacement
reaction will deposit silver on the foil, and some micrographs of
that would be most interesting to study. 

Also remember that the claimed xmutation took place over _months_,
not days. The plates would dissolve completely, and the silver would
be left in the solution as snowflakes of metal. The protocol Nick
is following is quite a bit different than what was done by this
anon researcher. Given that the cat is out of the bag, I'd be happy
to post more details from that work for us to try. 

One thing that struck me about working with this system was that
it blurred the boundaries of organic and inorganic. For example,
the silver will plate out in a form that resembles a christmas tree,
highly dendritic. I found by accident that light will catalyze the
reaction, so a plate that is facing the sun will grow dendrites
while the opposite side does not, just like a plant growing towards
the sun. One could look at it as a form of artificial life, or proto-life.
A little contemplation on this will yield some insight into how early
organic life might have formed in the primordial soup. The
boundaries are a lot more porous than what people generally believe.
Life really does seem to want to just pop out of the rocks.
No surprise there, for the true adept...

K.