X-Message-Number: 1976
Subject: CRYONICS: flashes of light
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1993 21:18:05 -0500
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <>


> From: Mike Darwin <>
> 
>      I have been very busy lately and thus unable to participate in the 
> discussion of this (or for that matter any other) topic on the net.  I am 
> dog-sitting even as I write this (that's good news cause it means the dog 
> lived!).

Good news, Mike; I trust we will here reports on this sometime soon.
However, I thought I might shed some flashes of light on another topic...

>      Also, Russian researchers have reported flashes of blue light being 
> emitted from fracturing solutions at cryogenic temperatures.  I understand 
> that the temperature of these flashes is high.

Just so you know, I have vague memories that is a well known
phenomenon that crystals under various kinds of stresses will emit
flashes of light while fracturing under the right circumstances.
Anyway, I forget the name of the phenomenon and its cause, but if
people are sufficiently interested I will look it up. (I suspect, by
the way, that in spite of the fact that the light is blueish that it
does not truly reflect a high temperature as blueish "black-body"
radiation would.) One disturbing thing is I recall that the phenomenon
only happens for reasonably well organized crystaline structures --
not for glasses, which is what we presume a bulk solution of
cryoprotectants and water near the glass transition point would be.
Anyway, as I've said, if there is interest I will look this up.

Perry

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