atoms

41:7.41. An­ni­hi­la­tion of atoms and, even­tu­ally, of elec­trons.

42:8.1While grav­ity is one of sev­eral fac­tors con­cerned in hold­ing to­gether a tiny atomic en­ergy sys­tem, there is also pres­ent in and among these ba­sic phys­i­cal units a pow­er­ful and un­known en­ergy, the se­cret of their ba­sic con­sti­tu­tion and ul­ti­mate be­hav­ior, a force which re­mains to be dis­cov­ered on Uran­tia. This uni­ver­sal in­flu­ence per­me­ates all the space em­braced within this tiny en­ergy or­ga­ni­za­tion.

42:8.2The in­ter­elec­tronic space of an atom is not empty. Through­out an atom this in­ter­elec­tronic space is ac­ti­vated by wave­like man­i­fes­ta­tions which are per­fectly syn­chro­nized with elec­tronic ve­loc­ity and ul­ti­ma­tonic rev­o­lu­tions. This force is not wholly dom­i­nated by your rec­og­nized laws of pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive at­trac­tion; its be­hav­ior is there­fore some­times un­pre­dictable. This un­named in­flu­ence seems to be a space-force re­ac­tion of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute.

42:8.3The charged pro­tons and the un­charged neu­trons of the nu­cleus of the atom are held to­gether by the re­cip­ro­cat­ing func­tion of the meso­tron, a par­ti­cle of mat­ter 180 times as heavy as the elec­tron. With­out this ar­range­ment the elec­tric charge car­ried by the pro­tons would be dis­rup­tive of the atomic nu­cleus.

42:8.4As atoms are con­sti­tuted, nei­ther elec­tric nor grav­i­ta­tional forces could hold the nu­cleus to­gether. The in­tegrity of the nu­cleus is main­tained by the re­cip­ro­cal co­her­ing func­tion of the meso­tron, which is able to hold charged and un­charged par­ti­cles to­gether be­cause of su­pe­rior force-mass power and by the fur­ther func­tion of caus­ing pro­tons and neu­trons con­stantly to change places. The meso­tron causes the elec­tric charge of the nu­clear par­ti­cles to be in­ces­santly tossed back and forth be­tween pro­tons and neu­trons. At one in­finites­i­mal part of a sec­ond a given nu­clear par­ti­cle is a charged pro­ton and the next an un­charged neu­tron. And these al­ter­na­tions of en­ergy sta­tus are so un­be­liev­ably rapid that the elec­tric charge is de­prived of all op­por­tu­nity to func­tion as a dis­rup­tive in­flu­ence. Thus does the meso­tron func­tion as an “en­ergy-car­rier” par­ti­cle which might­ily con­tributes to the nu­clear sta­bil­ity of the atom.

42:8.5The pres­ence and func­tion of the meso­tron also ex­plains an­other atomic rid­dle. When atoms per­form ra­dioac­tively, they emit far more en­ergy than would be ex­pected. This ex­cess of ra­di­a­tion is de­rived from the break­ing up of the meso­tron “en­ergy car­rier,” which thereby be­comes a mere elec­tron. The mesotronic dis­in­te­gra­tion is also ac­com­pa­nied by the emis­sion of cer­tain small un­charged par­ti­cles.

42:8.6The meso­tron ex­plains cer­tain co­he­sive prop­er­ties of the atomic nu­cleus, but it does not ac­count for the co­he­sion of pro­ton to pro­ton nor for the ad­he­sion of neu­tron to neu­tron. The para­dox­i­cal and pow­er­ful force of atomic co­he­sive in­tegrity is a form of en­ergy as yet undis­cov­ered on Uran­tia.

42:8.7These mesotrons are found abun­dantly in the space rays which so in­ces­santly im­pinge upon your planet.

41:7.12You might try to vi­su­al­ize 35,000,000 de­grees of heat, in as­so­ci­a­tion with cer­tain grav­ity pres­sures, as the elec­tronic boil­ing point. Un­der such pres­sure and at such tem­per­a­ture all atoms are de­graded and bro­ken up into their elec­tronic and other an­ces­tral com­po­nents; even the elec­trons and other as­so­ci­a­tions of ul­ti­ma­tons may be bro­ken up, but the suns are not able to de­grade the ul­ti­ma­tons.

41:6.3As your physi­cists have sus­pected, these mu­ti­lated rem­nants of so­lar cal­cium lit­er­ally ride the light beams for var­ied dis­tances, and thus their wide­spread dis­sem­i­na­tion through­out space is tremen­dously fa­cil­i­tated. The sodium atom, un­der cer­tain mod­i­fi­ca­tions, is also ca­pa­ble of light and en­ergy lo­co­mo­tion. The cal­cium feat is all the more re­mark­able since this el­e­ment has al­most twice the mass of sodium. Lo­cal space-per­me­ation by cal­cium is due to the fact that it es­capes from the so­lar pho­to­sphere, in mod­i­fied form, by lit­er­ally rid­ing the out­go­ing sun­beams. Of all the so­lar el­e­ments, cal­cium, not­with­stand­ing its com­par­a­tive bulk—con­tain­ing as it does twenty re­volv­ing elec­trons—is the most suc­cess­ful in es­cap­ing from the so­lar in­te­rior to the realms of space. This ex­plains why there is a cal­cium layer, a gaseous stone sur­face, on the sun six thou­sand miles thick; and this de­spite the fact that nine­teen lighter el­e­ments, and nu­mer­ous heav­ier ones, are un­der­neath.

41:6.4Cal­cium is an ac­tive and ver­sa­tile el­e­ment at so­lar tem­per­a­tures. The stone atom has two ag­ile and loosely at­tached elec­trons in the two outer elec­tronic cir­cuits, which are very close to­gether. Early in the atomic strug­gle it loses its outer elec­tron; where­upon it en­gages in a mas­ter­ful act of jug­gling the nine­teenth elec­tron back and forth be­tween the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cir­cuits of elec­tronic rev­o­lu­tion. By toss­ing this nine­teenth elec­tron back and forth be­tween its own or­bit and that of its lost com­pan­ion more than twenty-five thou­sand times a sec­ond, a mu­ti­lated stone atom is able par­tially to defy grav­ity and thus suc­cess­fully to ride the emerg­ing streams of light and en­ergy, the sun­beams, to lib­erty and ad­ven­ture. This cal­cium atom moves out­ward by al­ter­nate jerks of for­ward propul­sion, grasp­ing and let­ting go the sun­beam about twenty-five thou­sand times each sec­ond. And this is why stone is the chief com­po­nent of the worlds of space. Cal­cium is the most ex­pert so­lar-prison es­ca­per.

42:5.64. The elec­tronic stage. This stage of en­ergy is the ba­sis of all ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion in the seven super­uni­verses. When elec­trons pass from higher to lower en­ergy lev­els of or­bital rev­o­lu­tion, quanta are al­ways given off. Or­bital shift­ing of elec­trons re­sults in the ejec­tion or the ab­sorp­tion of very def­i­nite and uni­form mea­sur­able par­ti­cles of light-en­ergy, while the in­di­vid­ual elec­tron al­ways gives up a par­ti­cle of light-en­ergy when sub­jected to col­li­sion. Wave­like en­ergy man­i­fes­ta­tions also at­tend upon the per­for­mances of the pos­i­tive bod­ies and the other mem­bers of the elec­tronic stage.

42:5.53. The short space rays. These are the short­est of all purely elec­tronic vi­bra­tions and rep­re­sent the preatomic stage of this form of mat­ter. These rays re­quire ex­traor­di­nar­ily high or low tem­per­a­tures for their pro­duc­tion. There are two sorts of these space rays: one at­ten­dant upon the birth of atoms and the other in­dica­tive of atomic dis­rup­tion. They em­anate in the largest quan­ti­ties from the dens­est plane of the super­uni­verse, the Milky Way, which is also the dens­est plane of the outer uni­verses.

58:3.1Dur­ing the ear­lier times of uni­verse ma­te­ri­al­iza­tion the space re­gions are in­ter­spersed with vast hy­dro­gen clouds, just such as­tro­nomic dust clus­ters as now char­ac­ter­ize many re­gions through­out re­mote space. Much of the or­ga­nized mat­ter which the blaz­ing suns break down and dis­perse as ra­di­ant en­ergy was orig­i­nally built up in these early ap­pear­ing hy­dro­gen clouds of space. Un­der cer­tain un­usual con­di­tions atom dis­rup­tion also oc­curs at the nu­cleus of the larger hy­dro­gen masses. And all of these phe­nom­ena of atom build­ing and atom dis­so­lu­tion, as in the highly heated neb­u­lae, are at­tended by the emer­gence of flood tides of short space rays of ra­di­ant en­ergy. Ac­com­pa­ny­ing these di­verse ra­di­a­tions is a form of space-en­ergy un­known on Uran­tia.

42:7.1The for­ma­tion of all mat­ter is on the or­der of the so­lar sys­tem. There is at the cen­ter of ev­ery minute uni­verse of en­ergy a rel­a­tively sta­ble, com­par­a­tively sta­tion­ary, nu­clear por­tion of ma­te­rial ex­is­tence. This cen­tral unit is en­dowed with a three­fold pos­si­bil­ity of man­i­fes­ta­tion. Sur­round­ing this en­ergy cen­ter there whirl, in end­less pro­fu­sion but in fluc­tu­at­ing cir­cuits, the en­ergy units which are faintly com­pa­ra­ble to the plan­ets en­cir­cling the sun of some starry group like your own so­lar sys­tem.

42:7.2Within the atom the elec­trons re­volve about the cen­tral pro­ton with about the same com­par­a­tive room the plan­ets have as they re­volve about the sun in the space of the so­lar sys­tem. There is the same rel­a­tive dis­tance, in com­par­i­son with ac­tual size, be­tween the atomic nu­cleus and the in­ner elec­tronic cir­cuit as ex­ists be­tween the in­ner planet, Mer­cury, and your sun.

42:5.1In the super­uni­verse of Or­von­ton there are one hun­dred oc­taves of wave en­ergy. Of these one hun­dred groups of en­ergy man­i­fes­ta­tions, sixty-four are wholly or par­tially rec­og­nized on Uran­tia. The sun’s rays con­sti­tute four oc­taves in the super­uni­verse scale, the vis­i­ble rays em­brac­ing a sin­gle oc­tave, num­ber forty-six in this se­ries. The ul­tra­vi­o­let group comes next, while ten oc­taves up are the X rays, fol­lowed by the gamma rays of ra­dium. Thirty-two oc­taves above the vis­i­ble light of the sun are the outer-space en­ergy rays so fre­quently com­min­gled with their as­so­ci­ated highly en­er­gized minute par­ti­cles of mat­ter. Next down­ward from vis­i­ble sun­light ap­pear the in­frared rays, and thirty oc­taves be­low are the ra­dio trans­mis­sion group.

42:5.75. Gamma rays—those em­a­na­tions which char­ac­ter­ize the spon­ta­neous dis­so­ci­a­tion of atomic mat­ter. The best il­lus­tra­tion of this form of elec­tronic ac­tiv­ity is in the phe­nom­ena as­so­ci­ated with ra­dium dis­in­te­gra­tion.

42:5.16Pri­mor­dial-force be­hav­ior does give rise to phe­nom­ena which are in many ways anal­o­gous to your pos­tu­lated ether. Space is not empty; the spheres of all space whirl and plunge on through a vast ocean of out­spread force-en­ergy; nei­ther is the space con­tent of an atom empty. Nev­er­the­less there is no ether, and the very ab­sence of this hy­po­thet­i­cal ether en­ables the in­hab­ited planet to es­cape falling into the sun and the en­cir­cling elec­tron to re­sist falling into the nu­cleus.

42:7.3The elec­tronic ax­ial rev­o­lu­tions and their or­bital ve­loc­i­ties about the atomic nu­cleus are both be­yond the hu­man imag­i­na­tion, not to men­tion the ve­loc­i­ties of their com­po­nent ul­ti­ma­tons. The pos­i­tive par­ti­cles of ra­dium fly off into space at the rate of ten thou­sand miles a sec­ond, while the neg­a­tive par­ti­cles at­tain a ve­loc­ity ap­prox­i­mat­ing that of light.

42:7.4The lo­cal uni­verses are of dec­i­mal con­struc­tion. There are just one hun­dred dis­tin­guish­able atomic ma­te­ri­al­iza­tions of space-en­ergy in a dual uni­verse; that is the max­i­mum pos­si­ble or­ga­ni­za­tion of mat­ter in Neb­a­don. These one hun­dred forms of mat­ter con­sist of a reg­u­lar se­ries in which from one to one hun­dred elec­trons re­volve around a cen­tral and rel­a­tively com­pact nu­cleus. It is this or­derly and de­pend­able as­so­ci­a­tion of var­i­ous en­er­gies that con­sti­tutes mat­ter.

42:7.5Not ev­ery world will show one hun­dred rec­og­niz­able el­e­ments at the sur­face, but they are some­where pres­ent, have been pres­ent, or are in pro­cess of evo­lu­tion. Con­di­tions sur­round­ing the ori­gin and sub­se­quent evo­lu­tion of a planet de­ter­mine how many of the one hun­dred atomic types will be ob­serv­able. The heav­ier atoms are not found on the sur­face of many worlds. Even on Uran­tia the known heav­ier el­e­ments man­i­fest a ten­dency to fly to pieces, as is il­lus­trated by ra­dium be­hav­ior.

42:7.6Sta­bil­ity of the atom de­pends on the num­ber of elec­tri­cally in­ac­tive neu­trons in the cen­tral body. Chem­i­cal be­hav­ior is wholly de­pen­dent on the ac­tiv­ity of the freely re­volv­ing elec­trons.

42:7.7In Or­von­ton it has never been pos­si­ble nat­u­rally to as­sem­ble over one hun­dred or­bital elec­trons in one atomic sys­tem. When one hun­dred and one have been ar­ti­fi­cially in­tro­duced into the or­bital field, the re­sult has al­ways been the in­stan­ta­neous dis­rup­tion of the cen­tral pro­ton with the wild dis­per­sion of the elec­trons and other lib­er­ated en­er­gies.

42:7.8While atoms may con­tain from one to one hun­dred or­bital elec­trons, only the outer ten elec­trons of the larger atoms re­volve about the cen­tral nu­cleus as dis­tinct and dis­crete bod­ies, in­tactly and com­pactly swing­ing around on pre­cise and def­i­nite or­bits. The thirty elec­trons near­est the cen­ter are dif­fi­cult of ob­ser­va­tion or de­tec­tion as sep­a­rate and or­ga­nized bod­ies. This same com­par­a­tive ra­tio of elec­tronic be­hav­ior in re­la­tion to nu­clear prox­im­ity ob­tains in all atoms re­gard­less of the num­ber of elec­trons em­braced. The nearer the nu­cleus, the less there is of elec­tronic in­di­vid­u­al­ity. The wave­like en­ergy ex­ten­sion of an elec­tron may so spread out as to oc­cupy the whole of the lesser atomic or­bits; es­pe­cially is this true of the elec­trons near­est the atomic nu­cleus.

42:7.9The thirty in­ner­most or­bital elec­trons have in­di­vid­u­al­ity, but their en­ergy sys­tems tend to in­ter­min­gle, ex­tend­ing from elec­tron to elec­tron and well-nigh from or­bit to or­bit. The next thirty elec­trons con­sti­tute the sec­ond fam­ily, or en­ergy zone, and are of ad­vanc­ing in­di­vid­u­al­ity, bod­ies of mat­ter ex­ert­ing a more com­plete con­trol over their at­ten­dant en­ergy sys­tems. The next thirty elec­trons, the third en­ergy zone, are still more in­di­vid­u­al­ized and cir­cu­late in more dis­tinct and def­i­nite or­bits. The last ten elec­trons, pres­ent in only the ten heav­i­est el­e­ments, are pos­sessed of the dig­nity of in­de­pen­dence and are, there­fore, able to es­cape more or less freely from the con­trol of the mother nu­cleus. With a min­i­mum vari­a­tion in tem­per­a­ture and pres­sure, the mem­bers of this fourth and out­er­most group of elec­trons will es­cape from the grasp of the cen­tral nu­cleus, as is il­lus­trated by the spon­ta­neous dis­rup­tion of ura­nium and kin­dred el­e­ments.

42:7.10The first twenty-seven atoms, those con­tain­ing from one to twenty-seven or­bital elec­trons, are more easy of com­pre­hen­sion than the rest. From twenty-eight up­ward we en­counter more and more of the un­pre­dictabil­ity of the sup­posed pres­ence of the Un­qual­i­fied Ab­so­lute. But some of this elec­tronic un­pre­dictabil­ity is due to dif­fer­en­tial ul­ti­ma­tonic ax­ial rev­o­lu­tion­ary ve­loc­i­ties and to the un­ex­plained “hud­dling” pro­cliv­ity of ul­ti­ma­tons. Other in­flu­ences—phys­i­cal, elec­tri­cal, mag­netic, and grav­i­ta­tional—also op­er­ate to pro­duce vari­able elec­tronic be­hav­ior. Atoms there­fore are sim­i­lar to per­sons as to pre­dictabil­ity. Statis­ti­cians may an­nounce laws gov­ern­ing a large num­ber of ei­ther atoms or per­sons but not for a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual atom or per­son.

41:7.13These so­lar tem­per­a­tures op­er­ate to enor­mously speed up the ul­ti­ma­tons and the elec­trons, at least such of the lat­ter as con­tinue to main­tain their ex­is­tence un­der these con­di­tions. You will re­al­ize what high tem­per­a­ture means by way of the ac­cel­er­a­tion of ul­ti­ma­tonic and elec­tronic ac­tiv­i­ties when you pause to con­sider that one drop of or­di­nary wa­ter con­tains over one bil­lion tril­lions of atoms. This is the en­ergy of more than one hun­dred horse­power ex­erted con­tin­u­ously for two years. The to­tal heat now given out by the so­lar sys­tem sun each sec­ond is suf­fi­cient to boil all the wa­ter in all the oceans on Uran­tia in just one sec­ond of time.

42:1.4Sub­se­quent to even still greater prog­ress and fur­ther dis­cov­er­ies, af­ter Uran­tia has ad­vanced im­mea­sur­ably in com­par­i­son with pres­ent knowl­edge, though you should gain con­trol of the en­ergy rev­o­lu­tions of the elec­tri­cal units of mat­ter to the ex­tent of mod­i­fy­ing their phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions—even af­ter all such pos­si­ble prog­ress, for­ever will sci­en­tists be pow­er­less to cre­ate one atom of mat­ter or to orig­i­nate one flash of en­ergy or ever to add to mat­ter that which we call life.

42:6.7Each atom is a tri­fle over 1/100,000,000^th of an inch in di­am­e­ter, while an elec­tron weighs a lit­tle more than 1/2,000^th of the small­est atom, hy­dro­gen. The pos­i­tive pro­ton, char­ac­ter­is­tic of the atomic nu­cleus, while it may be no larger than a neg­a­tive elec­tron, weighs al­most two thou­sand times more.

41:9.2Atoms and elec­trons are sub­ject to grav­ity. The ul­ti­ma­tons are not sub­ject to lo­cal grav­ity, the in­ter­play of ma­te­rial at­trac­tion, but they are fully obe­di­ent to ab­so­lute or Par­a­dise grav­ity, to the trend, the swing, of the uni­ver­sal and eter­nal cir­cle of the uni­verse of uni­verses. Ul­ti­ma­tonic en­ergy does not obey the lin­ear or di­rect grav­ity at­trac­tion of near-by or re­mote ma­te­rial masses, but it does ever swing true to the cir­cuit of the great el­lipse of the far-flung cre­ation.