Scientists use particle accelerator to date wine

New test extends existing radioactivity tests on the actual wine itself
PARIS - French scientists have devised a way of using particle accelerators to authenticate vintage wines, one of France's top research bodies said this week...

The rest of the article can be found HERE.

What, the computer matching services didn't work?

Stimulating emission of X-rays . . . . hm . . . . and this doesn't damage the wine how? Anders, I'm speculating as to what the mechanism is here . . . . collisional excitation?

We know bottles were re-used back in the day; and it wouldn't be hard for someone to get a bottle of the proper vintage and refill it with younger wine. So I don't see how this test is all that robust or helpful.

would it help me get a date?

Stimulating emission of X-rays . . . . hm . . . . and this doesn't damage the wine how? Anders, I'm speculating as to what the mechanism is here . . . . collisional excitation?

Interesting, in particular for me, being an accelerator physicist, of course. I'd say the method used is probably PIXE, Particle Induced X-ray Emission, which is rather collisional ionization detecting the subsequent X-rays. Since the energy (wavelength) of these X-rays is characteristic of the atom from which they are emitted, this is a method to analyze the composition of the glass. The method used could also be Rutherford back-scattering or ESCA, but the results would be the same. The advantage of these methods is that also weak amounts of the constituents of the glass can be measured, to give a specific fingerprint of the different types of bottles.

We know bottles were re-used back in the day; and it wouldn't be hard for someone to get a bottle of the proper vintage and refill it with younger wine. So I don't see how this test is all that robust or helpful.

Still I'd say that a determination of the age of the bottle would give a good hint of the age of the wine within. Furthermore, I don't think it is easy to reseal an old bottle in an authentic and non tamper-evident way.
It would be most interesting to see the results of an analysis of the old bottles of Lafite et al. that were claimed to be from the 18th century, but rather recently has been shown with a high probability that the bottles themselves, and more specifically the engravings on them, are of a much younger date.

The new test extends existing radioactivity tests on the actual wine itself, which are currently incapable of identifying vintages prior to 1950.

IIRC, this is not absolutely true, but I need to brush up my knowledge on the limitations of the use of Carbon-14 for the dating of more recent samples. The problem is the increase in carbon-14 that was caused by the atmospheric bomb tests that were performed mainly in the 50s and 60s, that may lead to an ambiguity in the age determination.
Cheers,
Anders

Stimulating emission of X-rays . . . . hm . . . . and this doesn't damage the wine how? Anders, I'm speculating as to what the mechanism is here . . . . collisional excitation?

Interesting, in particular for me, being an accelerator physicist, of course. I'd say the method used is probably PIXE, Particle Induced X-ray Emission, which is rather collisional ionization detecting the subsequent X-rays. Since the energy (wavelength) of these X-rays is characteristic of the atom from which they are emitted, this is a method to analyze the composition of the glass. The method used could also be Rutherford back-scattering or ESCA, but the results would be the same.

OK, so I was on the right track. So the idea is that you ionize inner shell e- and the outer shell e- fall into to fill those energy levels, with corresponding quanta emission.

OK, so I was on the right track. So the idea is that you ionize inner shell e- and the outer shell e- fall into to fill those energy levels, with corresponding quanta emission.

Exactly, Ryan. You do remember some physics!
/A

Ok, Liberal Arts guy here.
WTF are these guys talking about. My car has an accelerator, does that count?
Dumbfounded as usual,
'Winger

The new test extends existing radioactivity tests on the actual wine itself, which are currently incapable of identifying vintages prior to 1950.

IIRC, this is not absolutely true, but I need to brush up my knowledge on the limitations of the use of Carbon-14 for the dating of more recent samples. The problem is the increase in carbon-14 that was caused by the atmospheric bomb tests that were performed mainly in the 50s and 60s, that may lead to an ambiguity in the age determination.
Cheers,
Anders

IIRC the radioactivity tests on wine were initially on Carbon 14 which occurs naturally but increased with the atomic test of the 50s and 60s but was ultimately thought to be too imprecise a measure. Later tests have been primarily on Caesium 137 because, if it is found, it is possible to say that some wine in a bottle must date from after the atomic bomb tests and therefore cannot be older than that. However if C137 doesn't show up the wine might be e.g. 200 years old or no more than 50+.

I believe this was the problem with Koch's Jefferson bottles when they were tested latterly - no Caesium 137, so the wine might have been as young as 50+ years of age but could equally have been 200+ years old.

In addition, if I have understood the sometimes dodgy translations, the 'ion beam' testing of the bottle glass requires calibration i.e. one needs a genuinely ancient bottle to compare with the one under test to demonstrate it is equally old although a 'young' comparator sample could show that it was a more modern product. I may have misunderstood this latter point.

Ok, Liberal Arts guy here.
WTF are these guys talking about. My car has an accelerator, does that count?
Dumbfounded as usual,
'Winger

Bill, no possibility to give a crash course in accelerator physics here, but, in short, an accelerator in the sense we are talking about here is a machine that accelerates, i.e. increases the speed of, charged particles, such as electrons or charged atoms, a.k.a. ions.

BTW, to expose the ignorance on my side: which Arts are characterized as "Liberal" and what is required of them to earn that description?

Cheers, Anders

..BTW, to expose the ignorance on my side: which Arts are characterized as "Liberal" and what is required of them to earn that description?
Cheers, Anders

Usually, "Liberal Arts" is a curriculum for an Associates Degree (2 year), which is basically advanced high school. Some schools have it with humanities emphasis (history, literature, psychology, etc.) and a math/science emphasis. Often these fill pre-requisites for a 4-year degree in another college or university. For instance, I attained an associate degree in liberal arts - humanities and was accepted into the school of management at a university and now have a business degree. However, had I taken the math/science emphasis, I could have gotten into the engineering school.

Thanks for enlightening me, Howie, I kind of guessed something along that line. What I'm really curious about is really why these subjects are called "liberal". Could it be because they are not as strict and bound by rules and laws as are the natural sciences and mathematics?
Cheers, Anders

OK, so I was on the right track. So the idea is that you ionize inner shell e- and the outer shell e- fall into to fill those energy levels, with corresponding quanta emission.

Exactly, Ryan. You do remember some physics!
/A

Well, I'm not all that rusty - just don't ask me to do any electrostatic potential boundary value problems (shudder).

However, I confess I had to look up the term on Wikipedia, but the mechanism itself is pretty basic. What energies are required for this sort of thing?

Thanks for enlightening me, Howie, I kind of guessed something along that line. What I'm really curious about is really why these subjects are called "liberal". Could it be because they are not as strict and bound by rules and laws as are the natural sciences and mathematics?
Cheers, Anders

They are the evolution of the classical Artes Liberales, i.e., the curriculum valued in Ancient Greece. Originally, th idea is that these [seven] subjects would make you a wholistically educated and well-rounded person. The modern application is to have students take, in addition to their majors, a variety of courses in several specific areas. I think the spirit of the classical liberal arts is lost though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts

It should be noted that Liberal Arts classically DOES include physcial science and mathematics. Basically the classical curriculum for the "free man" (therefore the Liberal).

While a test of the age of the bottle certainly doesn't prove that the wine inside is same age, it can provide one data point to the discussion. A Carfax report doesn't prove a used car is good, but worth having as a data point.

IIRC the radioactivity tests on wine were initially on Carbon 14 which occurs naturally but increased with the atomic test of the 50s and 60s but was ultimately thought to be too imprecise a measure. Later tests have been primarily on Caesium 137 because, if it is found, it is possible to say that some wine in a bottle must date from after the atomic bomb tests and therefore cannot be older than that. However if C137 doesn't show up the wine might be e.g. 200 years old or no more than 50+.
I believe this was the problem with Koch's Jefferson bottles when they were tested latterly - no Caesium 137, so the wine might have been as young as 50+ years of age but could equally have been 200+ years old.

With the atmospheric testing in the '50's-'60's, tons of radio-actinides were dumped into the atmosphere....isotopes that had decayed away to nothing millions of yrs ago. The impact on the C-14 population was pretty nil. It's an easy test to identify Cs-137 in a material. If present, that means the material post-dates the '50's. If not present, then it predates the '50's. But that's pretty much all it tells. At least as I understand it.
Tom

Ok, Liberal Arts guy here.
WTF are these guys talking about. My car has an accelerator, does that count?
Dumbfounded as usual,
'Winger

Bill, no possibility to give a crash course in accelerator physics here, but, in short, an accelerator in the sense we are talking about here is a machine that accelerates, i.e. increases the speed of, charged particles, such as electrons or charged atoms, a.k.a. ions.

BTW, to expose the ignorance on my side: which Arts are characterized as "Liberal" and what is required of them to earn that description?

Cheers, Anders

Anders,
Dale's reply above is pretty much on target. My 4 yr University undergraduate degree majored in Economics and History with just a smattering of course work in the physical sciences, such as chemistry, physics, microbiology, etc.
BP

With the atmospheric testing in the '50's-'60's, tons of radio-actinides were dumped into the atmosphere

Well, rather radio active isotopes, the actinides, or now called actinoids, are the elements from 89 to 103 in the periodic table.

....isotopes that had decayed away to nothing millions of yrs ago. The impact on the C-14 population was pretty nil. It's an easy test to identify Cs-137 in a material. If present, that means the material post-dates the '50's. If not present, then it predates the '50's. But that's pretty much all it tells. At least as I understand it.
Tom

Well, again, if one measures the specific activity of Cs-137 in the wine, i.e. the number of decays per second and per unit volume, one can compare with the bomb pulse and normally get two possible vintages - one on the rising and one on the falling slope of the pulse. This diagram shows an example of what it might look like.

Cs peak75.jpg

The horizontal red line shows the level of activity measured and the two vertical arrows point to the two possible interpretations of the result. It could be interesting to note that this measurement can be made on unopened bottles.
Regarding carbon dating of samples from years before the bomb pulse, I have tried to find information regarding how young samples one can date measuring C-14, but have not succeeded. If someone knows, I'd be happy if you could tell me.
Finally, I include also the bomb pulse for C-14 below. As you can see, the impact on the amounts of C-14 from the atmospheric bomb tests was far from "pretty nil"... An example of a measurement on a wine that does not fit with the claimed vintage is shown.

Bomb curve67.jpg

Cheers,
Anders

Now if we can get time on the new accelerator at CERN - the one that reproduces the densities of the very early universe - we might have a chance to date Tom Hill, who has followed primoridal nucleosynthesis from the very beginning.

Finally, I include also the bomb pulse for C-14 below. As you can see, the impact on the amounts of C-14 from the atmospheric bomb tests was far from "pretty nil"... An example of a measurement on a wine that does not fit with the claimed vintage is shown.
Cheers,
Anders

Anders,
I stand corrected. I was just winging that "pretty nil" comment off the top of my head w/o much thinking. But it makes sense what you say. Because of the presence of CO2 in the air, there would be a lot of C-14 created by activation of the surrounding air by the bomb radiation.

As for Bernie's smart-a$$ remark...who the heck does he think created the big bang!!!
Tom

...who the heck does he think created the big bang!!!
Tom

You mean it wasn't Al Gore?

Because of the presence of CO2 in the air, there would be a lot of C-14 created by activation of the surrounding air by the bomb radiation.
Tom

Sorry Tom, just to get things right, (I don't want to be a Messerschmidt) I think also this conclusion of yours needs a little correction. I would say that most of the C-14 would be created due to the heavy neutron flux on N-14 in a so called (n,p) reaction, that is a neutron merging with a nitrogen nucleus, causing a proton to leave. Some C-14 could be created by (n,gamma) reactions on carbon, but since the amount of C-13 is very small, only minute amounts of C-14 would be the result.
Cheers, Anders

Sorry Tom, just to get things right, (I don't want to be a Messerschmidt) I think also this conclusion of yours needs a little correction. I would say that most of the C-14 would be created due to the heavy neutron flux on N-14 in a so called (n,p) reaction, that is a neutron merging with a nitrogen nucleus, causing a proton to leave. Some C-14 could be created by (n,gamma) reactions on carbon, but since the amount of C-13 is very small, only minute amounts of C-14 would be the result.
Cheers, Anders

Undoubtedly right, Anders. I didn't try to consider the exact nuclear transformations that would produce the C-14. I just know there's
a whole bunch of various types of radiation in the bomb debris of high intensities that can create all sorts of things, and sure C-14 was one of them.
I love it when we can talk physics on a WineBoard. All those wine weenies probably look on with awe and feel that, since we're
authorities, even our TN's are irrefutable!!!
Tom

...who the heck does he think created the big bang!!!
Tom

You mean it wasn't Al Gore?

Nawh...Al was busy inventing the InterNet when we created the big bang. He's a piker by comparison.
Tom