Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Microcosmology: Atom
the nucleus will never break by itself, but will also have a tendency to fuse with other nuclei coming into its contact. It is now established that the electric repulsion forces prevail in all heavier nuclei, while the cohesive forces hold the upper hand in the lighter elements from hydrogen approximately upto silver in atomic table1 Each proton or neutron in the elements weighs less than it does in the free state, the loss of weight equal to the energy binding the nucleons. This loss becoming progressively greater for the elements in the first half of the atomic table, reaching its maximum in the nucleus of silver. After that the loss gets progressively smaller. Since each loss of mass manifests itself by the release of energy, it can be seen that to obtain energy from the atoms, nucleus requires either the fusion of two elements in the first half of the table or the fission of an element in the second half.
However, because of the state of metastability, neither the fission nor fusion would occur normally unless something was done to start the process2. And the process of starting a nuclear reaction is extremely difficult because it needs very high activation energies.
The available energies. when the temperature is not too high, are not high enough, to disturb the nuclear equilibrium, and as we have stated earlier, mostly electrons are responsible for the diverse nature of physical existence on earth.
The multitudes of shapes and molecular architecture can exist only on earth where temperature is not too high.
In the stars, where the thermal energy increases a hundredfold and where most of the matter in universe exists, the state of the matter is radically different from that on earth.
In the centre of stars, where temperatures are very high, the matter exists in large accumulations of nuclear matter and nuclear processes which are rare on earth, predominate there. Of particular importance to us are nuclear reactions in the sun because they supply life-supporting energy on earth. The
1. See appendix.
2. Please see Chapter III for discussion on this point.