- The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was: promoted by TheAwesomeHwyh 23:59, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
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Beryllium-8
- ... that because of the short half-life of beryllium-8, a key intermediary in stellar nucleosynthesis, the evolution of life in the Universe is considered an "unbelievable coincidence"?[1]
- ALT1:... that the evolution of life in the Universe despite the short half-life of beryllium-8 is cited as evidence that the universe is fine-tuned?[2]
- ALT2:... that the short half-life of beryllium-8 creates a bottleneck in stellar nucleosynthesis, limiting the abundance of heavier chemical elements?[3]
- ALT3:... that a 2015 experiment involving beryllium-8 may be suggestive of a fifth fundamental force in physics?[4]
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Uptown Hudson Tubes
- Comment: If any of the hooks sound too technical, I would greatly appreciate alternative phrasings or ideas to strengthen the appeal of this relatively obscure subject to the average reader.
5x expanded by ComplexRational (talk). Self-nominated at 15:30, 14 July 2019 (UTC).
- Your initial suggestion is the opinion of one Io9 headline writer. I like Io9 too, but let's not be ridiculous. ALT1 feels too teleological; I'd really rather not have anything on the front page that can be willfully misinterpreted as bolstering creationist arguments. ("Oh, but if creationists read the relevant articles all the way through, they'll realize that the statement doesn't support their arguments!", you might say. Yes, but this requires them to be intellectually honest.) ALT3: has there been any progress in exploring that anomaly since 2015? - DS (talk) 23:02, 22 July 2019 (UTC) -->
- @DragonflySixtyseven: In regards to ALT3, the most recent publication is Feng, 2016, which is cited in the article. I haven't found anything more recent than that. I can see where the problems with ALT0 and ALT1 lie; that said, do you have any suggestions to reword ALT1 (perhaps mentioning anthropic principle or is that still too creationist)?
- I will also propose another hook that is hopefully broader:
- ALT4:... that the triple-alpha process, which produces carbon in stars, must occur extremely quickly because of the instability of beryllium-8?[5]
- ComplexRational (talk) 00:33, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
- How about something to quantify the instability? ALT5 ... that the triple-alpha process, which produces carbon in stars, must occur extremely quickly because it requires beryllium-8, which decays in less than a quadrillionth of a second?
- I like that idea (ALT5); I was thinking of a way to quantify the half-life but it didn't sound right originally - thank you! ComplexRational (talk) 00:52, 23 July 2019 (UTC) (forgotten ping: @DragonflySixtyseven: ComplexRational (talk) 00:58, 23 July 2019 (UTC))
- How about something to quantify the instability? ALT5 ... that the triple-alpha process, which produces carbon in stars, must occur extremely quickly because it requires beryllium-8, which decays in less than a quadrillionth of a second?
References
- ^ Inglis-Arkell, E. "This Unbelievable Coincidence Is Responsible For Life In The Universe". Gizmodo. Retrieved 14 July 2019.
- ^ Epelbaum, E.; Krebs, H.; Lee, D.; Meißner, Ulf-G. (2011). "Ab initio calculation of the Hoyle state" (PDF). Physical Review Letters. 106: 192501–1—192501–4. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.192501.)
- ^ Coc, A.; Vangioni, E. (2014). "The triple-alpha reaction and the A = 8 gap in BBN and Population III stars" (PDF). Memorie della Società Astronomica Italiana. 85: 124–129.)
- ^ Cartlidge, E. (25 May 2016). "Has a Hungarian physics lab found a fifth force of nature?". Nature. Retrieved 14 July 2019.)
- ^ Landsman, K. (2015). "The Fine-Tuning Argument". arXiv:1505.05359.
| General: Article is new enough and long enough |
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| Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems |
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| Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation |
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| QPQ: Done. |
Overall: 
Fivefold expansion is good. As for whether the source confirms the hook, it's a notation issue: source says "81.9 as", which is 81.9 attoseconds; there are 1000 attoseconds in a femtosecond; a femtosecond is a quadrillionth of a second; therefore the source's "81.9 as" is the article's "8.19×10^−17 seconds" is the hook's catchier "less than a quadrillionth of a second". As for the fine details of how the triple-alpha process works, the way in which it requires the presence of beryllium-8, its high speed (or rather, 'reaction rate', which for the purposes of a DYK entry we can consider to be equivalent)... I can't entirely follow all the statements in the relevant journal articles on stellar nucleosynthesis, but from what I understand, this does indeed seem to be what they're saying, so I'll AGF. So... we're good with ALT5. DS (talk) 15:46, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
- Thank you for the review. As a side note, I discovered that the 2018 experiment was actually repeated, and added the source. ALT5 is fine. ComplexRational (talk) 01:37, 24 July 2019 (UTC)