A bottle of wine in a proton accelerator. Free Technical Library News

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Bottle of wine in a proton accelerator

14.02.2009

French physicists from the Center for Nuclear Research in Bordeaux have learned how to determine the time of glass production by firing wine bottles with high-energy protons.

X-rays produced by proton impacts carry information about the chemical composition of the glass, and by comparing this composition with data from a collection of 80 bottles, the age and origin of which are precisely known, it is possible to determine when and where the bottle was made.

The process does not affect the quality and taste of the contents of the vessel. So far, the age of a bottle is determined with an accuracy of 15 years, but by expanding the collection of "reference" bottles, physicists hope to bring the accuracy up to two years. If the age of the bottle and the year of wine production indicated on the label differ greatly, we are talking about a fake.

Another group of researchers from the same Center dates the wine itself by determining the content of the caesium-137 isotope in it. This isotope occurs in nuclear explosions and accumulates in grapes, so the dating limit is limited to the period from 1945 to 1963, when atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons was prohibited. But the accuracy of the method is up to one year.

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