Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/545

Rh 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.

The 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.

As 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.

The 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.

The 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.

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

Religion is not alone dogmatic; natural philosophy equally tends to dogmatize. When a renowned religious teacher reasoned that the number seven was fundamental to nature because there are seven openings in the human head, if he had known more of chemistry, he might have advocated such a belief founded on a true phenomenon of the physical world. There is in all the physical universes of time and space, notwithstanding the universal manifestation of the decimal constitution of energy, the ever-present reminder of the reality of the sevenfold electronic organization of prematter.

The number seven is basic to the central universe and the spiritual system of inherent transmissions of character, but the number ten, the decimal system, is inherent in energy, matter, and the material creation. Nevertheless the atomic world does display a certain periodic characterization which recurs in groups of seven—a birthmark carried by this material world indicative of its far-distant spiritual origin.