1. INTRODUCTION

Atomic weight measurements on the elements persuaded Prout (1815, 1816) almost two centuries ago that hydrogen is the fundamental building block of all other elements because their atomic weights appeared to be integral multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen. Prout's hypothesis was later found to be inconsistent with more precise measurements of the atomic weights of some elements, like neon and chlorine. This dilemma was resolved by discoveries of the neutron (Chadwick, 1932a,b) and of isotopes like – ²⁰Ne, ²²Ne, ³⁵Cl and ³⁷Cl – with atomic weights that are individually close to integral multiples of the atomic weight of hydrogen's most abundant isotope, ¹H (Aston, 1920). After Hoyle (1946) adopted and promoted the idea that other elements are made in stars from hydrogen, the concept of primordial hydrogen became an integral part of the story of stellar nucleosynthesis (e.g., Burbidge et al., 1957).

Baade and Zwicky (1934) suggested that ordinary stars might collapse and transition into neutron stars. Oppenheimer and Volkoff (1939) advanced this idea and predicted that a neutron star of mass (m) would be stable only in the mass range of 1/3 Mo < m < 3/4 Mo, where Mo is one solar mass.

2. DISCUSSION

Nuclear rest mass data and other data from measurements of solar neutrinos and variations in the abundances of chemical elements and their isotopes in meteorites, planets, the Moon and solar emissions over the past five decades have been interpreted as evidence that solar luminosity, solar neutrinos and the solar wind are produced by a series of four reactions, triggered by neutron repulsion in the solar core (Manuel, 2011 and references therein):

The volume of the particle increases by a factor of about 10¹⁵ in the decay of a neutron into a hydrogen atom - Step 2. Since the "average distance between the interstellar atoms is roughly 10⁸ times larger than the size of the atoms themselves" (Zeilik, 1982, page 361), the volume occupied by the hydrogen atom in Step 2 will eventually be increased by a factor of ~ 10⁸ in Step 4, after the solar wind transfers it to the interstellar medium. Thus the volume occupied by a neutron in the core of the Sun increases by a factor of about 10¹⁵ x 10⁸ = 10²³ in the process that powers the Sun and releases hydrogen to the interstellar medium as a waste product. The empirical evidence for expansion of fundamental particles in the Sun does not necessarily support the popular view of an expanding universe, initiated by an initial "Big Bang" (e.g., Peebles et al., 1991; Wollack, 2011, and references cited there), because:

However, the local expansion of material in the solar system is probably replicated in many other ordinary stars and may therefore be part of the overall expansion of the universe (e.g., Peebles et al., 1991; Wollack, 2011). None of the observations cited in Manuel (2011) conflict with the idea that the Sun is like other stars.

Since one referee commented that nobody knows what most stars are like, I will explain next why observations on the Sun - an ordinary star - may imply the behavior of other ordinary stars and an overall expansion of the universe. For decades university and college textbooks on astronomy have suggested that the Sun is an ordinary star that conveniently serves as a model for more distant stars (Strobe, 2010; Zeilik, 1982):

Local expansion in the volume of individual particles in the Sun and other ordinary stars does not necessarily indicate a finite universe and an initial "Big Bang", even if dynamic competition between attractive forces of gravity and repulsive forces between neutrons powers the entire cosmos. The direction of nuclear evolution may reverse when the supply of compact, neutron-rich objects is depleted to the point that neutron repulsion can no longer successfully compete against gravitational attraction.

3. CONCLUSIONS

The restless universe and all ordinary matter in it appear to consist of two different forms of one fundamental particle, compacted and expanded:

The two forms of one fundamental particle that describe the universe and all of the atoms in it are intriguingly similar to the description in Sanskrit of "eternal, formless Reality" (Lord Krishna) as Vistharah, "he who has expanded himself" and Sthavarasthanuh, "he who is completely still" (Easwaran, 1979, page 11), i.e., Sthavarasthanuh <=> Visthara.

Acknowledgments This manuscript has benefited from comments by two anonymous reviewers and by members of the Yahoo discussion group on neutron repulsion. The author is deeply indebted to the kindness of Fate and the encouragement and support of family members and friends in the lifelong quest to understand the origin and operation of the solar system.