Detector Technology

[LC76]

After some recent complaints by certain people about the lack of advancements in detector technology i started to have some ideas.

Gold detectors are all about emitting a field and then detecting the the field coming from conductive objects and then giving a tone or number based on that return field.
I know its more complicated than that but close enough.

But too many things like lead,aluminium,rust iron,ect can produce a field that's too similar to tell apart.

What if we could make a detector that detects the atomic vibration of gold?...or anything for that matter.
As far as i know everything has a unique atomic vibration.

So why not detect that atomic vibration instead of the electro magnetic field?

Am i on to something or am i just having a brain fart?

Edit to add link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130523143545.htm

Maybe similar to what im thinking

 

[kleinman98]

After some recent complaints by certain people about the lack of advancements in detector technology i started to have some ideas.

Gold detectors are all about emitting a field and then detecting the the field coming from conductive objects and then giving a tone or number based on that return field.
I know its more complicated than that but close enough.

But too many things like lead,aluminium,rust iron,ect can produce a field that's too similar to tell apart.

What if we could make a detector that detects the atomic vibration of gold?...or anything for that matter.
As far as i know everything has a unique atomic vibration.

So why not detect that atomic vibration instead of the electro magnetic field?

Am i on to something or am i just having a brain fart?

Edit to add link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130523143545.htm

Maybe similar to what im thinking

Mate build it and they will come!

 

[Jaros]

Very interesting reading John. It could be the future of detecting. Keep an eye on it.
:/ MMmmm

 

[KarlS]

Those detectors are already available on eBay .
Theoreticaly possible, but practicaly not yet. You could try to convert MR scan machine to work like detector. Only problem, it weights few tons,consumes few kilowatts of power and cost few millions.
Karl

 

[Goldpick]

I think some limiting factors that we forget to consider re detector development and technology, are electromagnetic and RF emissions. As you may have seen with the recent documents posted on the testing of Minelab's new detector, there are some pretty stringent tests to pass to ensure that their products don't exceed certain emissions levels. I am thinking that this alone may be a seriously limiting factor for detector manufacturers on how powerful any new detector can be, without causing undue electronic interference, or produce emissions that could be considered harmful to the operator.

So it is probably not a case of making the most powerful detector possible, then have it made available to the general public, as it won't happen, at least not without the requirement for the machine to be registered, and a license issued to operate it. Much the same with CB radios, and the emissions limits imposed on them.

Something to think about anyway.

 

[outboard]

To detect something you need to measure energy , in its simplest form we see (a form of detecting) something because light energy is either produced by it or reflected from it.
Using energy at different wave lengths we can alter what is penetrated and what reflects our energy and using suitably tuned antenna we can "see" or "detect" that energy eg radar: sends out radio waves(energy) which are reflected back to the sending antenna when a significant change in medium they are travelling through is met ie. going from air to a ships hull.

generally the items we are trying to detect are inert, that is they do not emit energy, if they did they would be radio active so we need to use energy to get a reflected signal or use their properties to alter that energy in a way we can measure.

It would be nice if the analysers they use in star trek were a reality and we could simply point a hand held device in a general direction and it told us how far away and how deep a gold nugget was but, despite so many things from that show now being reality that device is not (neither is super strength Transparent aluminium, but they are getting closer having made pure transparent aluminium but it only lasted for 40 femtoseconds before it broke down to regular aluminium)

The reality of detector technology is the companies are marketing the best they have, they continue to improve them but with all technological improvements they are small steps at a time

 

[Reeks]

We need something that can give us a live ultrasound style picture of what is under the coil.
More dense objects (nuggets) show up in a different contrast/colour than the surrounding ground.

Im sure this could punch deeper than any electromagnet pulse.
My $700 fish finder can see a fish 40+m beneath my boat! And its only slightly more dense than the surrounding water!

 

[Ramjet]

Maybe GPR. Ground penetrating radar technology will be one path for future detectors. When the technology improves and the price and size come down.

 

[DrDuck]

This technology has existed for some time, but I don't think it is practical for gold searching!

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

 

[Goldtarget]

Often the conversation about detector tech gets dragged into a downward spiral so I'm very happy to see a thread that's encouraging some positive and lateral thinking with some intelligent input. I doubt anyone here has any serious notions of throwing away steady employment to pursue research and development of new ideas but let's hope someone out there who has been charged with the task is busily progressing future technology that Can go some way into being capable of some of the ideas being thought about here.

Wouldn't it be great if the developers were as passionate and shared the same sense of inclination to provide these sorts of products. Perhaps we may yet get to see and use some other types of machines that are capable of differing responses to locate and ascertain gold deposits. Perhaps the biggest hurdle is the framework these products are being produced under, I wonder if they switched from mass produced units to highly specialized (custom) platforms would we see the pace of development and advancement increase exponentially. While the current processes are locked into mass production and worldwide distributing and servicing the time between one product and the next will be not much different to traditional time frames.

 

[Jaros]

Some good "heavy" reading.
Thanks DrDuck

 

[Heatho]

How about a Neutrino pulse metal detector, those little Neutrinos could detect something in China, they can travel straight through the Earth. Some sort of Quantum detector that spits out entangled particles to read exactly what's in the ground.

Thing I like about the Quantum world is matter can be in 2 places simultaneously until a calculation is made or observed. The Gold could be in your pocket and in the ground simultaneously until observed in your pocket.

 

[LC76]

Heatho i read a lot about Quantum mechanics....i still don't have a clue what it all means.
But your post gave me a giggle thanks.

 

[DrDuck]

Physicist Richard Feynman said "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

Earlier Danish Physicist Niels Bohr said something similar "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

I've been interested in this stuff since I was at uni, and am simply not a good enough mathematician to grasp it properly.

There are a couple of good popular books, like Manjit Kumar's Quantum among others. The history and philosophy of physics is a pretty interesting topic, even if you are not a physicist or mathematician.