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THE ELECTRIC SUN & THE MYTH _ described a "nuclear furnace" responsible case the electric repulsion between two OF THE NUCLEAR FURNACE for igniting stars. And for decades now, cos- _ protons or like charges. Once protons are by David Talbott mologists, astronomers and astrophysicists fused, they could be held together by the © 2005 Thunderbolts.info have accepted the basic concept as fact. In strong nuclear force, but that force the early formulations of this "standard dominates only at short distances. To ‘ ), J hat is the source of the Sun's light model" of star formation, it was said that the achieve fusion, it would be necessary for and heat? Throughout history, gravitational force within a primordial cloud _ protons to cross the barrier of the repulsive people have proposed answers to _ leads to its progressive compression into a _ electric force, which is sufficient to keep the this question that have always reflected "circumstellar disc", as the outer material in protons apart forever. But Eddington's human experience. The Sun was a shining — the cloud "falls" inward and gravity gives successors accomplished the impossible by god, or a "spark" cast off in the creation. _ birth to a star-sized sphere whose core tem- something called "quantum tunnelling", Later it was a pile of burning sticks or coal. _ perature continues to rise under increasing _ enabling an extremely small percentage of By the 19th century, astronomers had pressures. Collisions of atoms within the protons simply to "appear" inside the barrier become accustomed to thinking that gravity core eventually become so energetic that at any particular time. was the dominant force in the heavens. So electrons are stripped from their nuclei, It is ironic that the early objections to the they began to conjecture that the energy of _ leaving free electrons and hydrogen protons fusion model of the Sun focused on the the Sun might be due to "gravitational (a plasma, as we now understand it). In stars powerful electric force. This was long collapse", a compression of before the arrival of the Space solar gases by gravity. This Age, with its discovery that the simple hypothesis, its charged particles of plasma per- proponents claimed, could meate interplanetary and inter- provide the required energy stellar space, and long before any output for a few tens of systematic investigations of plas- millions of years. However, ma and electricity in space. by the late 19th century, Advocates of the "nuclear geologists were confident that furnace" model made a series of Earth was much older than the fundamental assumptions astronomers’ model would common to astronomy long allow, and the conflict between before the emergence of a astronomy and_ geology nuclear model of the Sun. The continued for several decades. credibility of these assumptions Then, in 1920, the British was not an issue to them. They astronomer Sir Arthur assumed that diffuse clouds of Eddington combined the prin- gas in space would collapse ciple of gravitational collapse gravitationally into star-sized with an exciting new principle bodies. They assumed that the in the physical sciences: Sun's mass could be calculated nuclear fusion. He proposed simply from the orbital motions that at the core of the Sun, of the planets. They assumed pressures and temperatures that Newtonian calculations of induced a nuclear reaction fus- Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO mass, coupled with standard gas ing hydrogen into helium. laws, enabled them to determine In 939, two astrophysicists, roughly comparable to our Sun, with envi- the pressure and temperature of the Sun's Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Hans sioned core temperatures less than 15 core. The pioneers of the nuclear furnace Bethe, working independently, began to _ million Kelvin, the nuclear reaction begins | model also followed another assumption quantify the gravitational collapse and when hydrogen protons are joined or stuck common to astronomy in their time: that nuclear fusion hypothesis. Bethe described together in the "proton-proton fusion" of the Sun and planets are electrically neutral. the results of his calculations in a brief hydrogen into helium. They gave no consideration to the role of paper entitled "Energy Production in Stars", Critics, however, pointed out that the _ electricity and no consideration to the role published in 1939. temperatures given by standard gas laws are _ of the magnetic fields that electric currents The model that followed the work of not sufficient to provoke nuclear fusion. generate. Eddington, Chandrasekhar and Bethe They cited the "Coulomb barrier", in this Are the assumptions made in the first THE ELECTRIC SUN & THE MYTH OF THE NUCLEAR FURNACE by David Talbott © 2005 Thunderbolts.info NEXUS * 45 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2005 www.nexusmagazine.com