Myth-making is an old human custom and entertainment, Physicists have not been immunized from it.

Some additional examples of modern myth-making are: the 4-dimensional infinitely divisible space-time continuum; the quark; the neutron star; and the black hole, etc.

Myths of modern physics, being of scientific rather than religious foundation, are more subtle than popular myths of the past.

Hardly anyone in the U.S.A. or U.S.S.R. believes that the sun and moon are a god and goddess. Probably no academician alive believes, as once Plato did, that the planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, are divinities. The Viking gods, Woden and Thor, no longer are widely believed to preside, respectively, over Wednesday and Thursday, not even in Scandinavia.

Myths of modern physics are much more difficult to refute than the myths of the past, because the modern myths are more finely invented and intricately interwoven. The modern scientific myths also are backed by the articulate advocacy of many leading modern scientists--a profession better organized than the priesthood of ancient Greece.

Myth of Solar Fusion
The myth of solar fusion is the unfounded theory that the sun's energy derives primarily from the fusion of four hydrogen nuclei to a helium nucleus with neutrino formation as a by-product.

One has only to look into almost any college astronomy textbook, be it Frederick and Baker, 10th Edition(1976); George Abell, 3rd Edition(1975); Pasachoff and Kutner(1978); or Michael Zelik, Astronomy(1979) to realize that the nuclear fusion model of solar energy generation has had its day. This is because Ray Davis' neutrino experiment has not confirmed the fusion model. It is regrettable that many competent physicists and astronomers accepted the Hans Bethe solar fusion models as proved before the experimental results were in. As recently as 1965, no well-known physicist or astronomer doubted that the sun was emitting copious amounts of neutrinos. They agreed uncritically and complacently that the Bethe models must be correct and the Davis experiment must prove it to be so. The nuclear fusion myth can only be maintained by denying that it matters as all whether the theory can be confirmed experimentally.

In 1959, D.B.Larson doubted the solar fusion concept and proposed an alternative radioactive explanation of solar energy generation. From the postulates of his Reciprocal System of theory he has inferred that the energy generation is achieved by the fission of the heavy elements instead of fusion of the light elements in the sun.

The Larson fission theory of solar energy generation has the merit that it does not require the sun to emit an abundance of neutrinos, as does the fusion theory. Fission, nevertheless, does account for the solar energy as well as fusion can and should have been considered equally with fusion as a principal cause of the sun's energy from the beginning. Though by not examining it, no one has either proved or disproved it, this theory has a distinct advantage over the fusion theory of also offering a credible physical explanation of supernova explosions (Larson, 1971,1984).

Myth of the Nuclear Atom
The solar fusion myth is a conspicuous by-product of the theory of nuclear physics. The mythical character of the by-product raises a question: How free of myth is nuclear physics itself?

The principle reason why the nuclear atom model, apart from the question of its truth, has remained firmly in command of physical and chemical research is that it has seemed to work.

However, the nuclear atom model seems not to work for explaining how the sun's energy is generated. Thus, the nuclear atom is itself brought into question, because it has failed to work for the important case of solar energy generation.

Besides, analysis of atomic structure in the light of D.B.Larson's(1961) Reciprocal System discloses that the nuclear atom model is, itself, a myth.

No nucleus can be seen in any atom, simply because there is none to be seen, not because the atom and nucleus are too small to be seen.

So-called elementary-particles, such as protons, neutrons and electrons, are not included in actual atomic structure, because an atom is really a unity of discrete motions rather than a system of distinct substances.

The interesting finding of the Reciprocal System is that matter pre- supposes light. Matter is a form of motion, specifically a superposition of discrete motions, rotational motions, upon the vibrational and translational motions of one or two photons of light.

Shrader-Frechette (1977) in an extended review of the nuclear atom concluded that there is no more evidence that an atom is composed of elementary particles than that it is not.

Myth of Nothing Faster than Light
It is evidently true that no material object moves faster than 186,000 miles/second. It is not true that material objects are the only physical objects to be found in the physical universe.

The material sector is one-half of the physical universe, not the whole of it. Larson(1959,1979) refers to the other half as the cosmic sector, because the principal evidence for its existence is found in the existence of cosmic radiation [cosmic rays and background radiation].

The cosmic sector contains as many kinds of physical objects as does the material sector. A cosmic object can be identified and distinguished from a material object by the fact that it can only exist as such by having a finite rate of motion exceeding 186,000 miles/second.

Hence it is a myth that 186,000 miles/second is the maximum speed allowable in the physical universe.

The absolute constancy and isotropy of the 186,000 miles/second speed in empty space-time should have alerted physicists before now to the fact that this cannot be the characteristic speed of a particle of light. Photons are peculiar immaterial physical objects in that they have two speeds, two rates of motion-a translation rate and a vibration rate, called frequency. What distinguishes one photon from another is frequency. A photon is a compound motion, which explains why it behaves as particle and wave. The speed which photons have in common is the speed of the specific space-time location in which each photon originates. Larson calls this speed of light the unit speed of the space-time progression at the uniform clock rate of one unit of space per one time unit. The postulated discreteness of the space-time continuum is due to Larson's discovery (1959,1979) that neither space nor time is infinitely divisible and that they are reciprocally related as motion.

It is because space and time are the reciprocals of each other, that for every physical entity or phenomenon, there is an inverse, which is identical in all respects except that space and time are interchanged. For instance, for every material chemical element in the Periodic Table, its inverse exists in the form of a chemical element. This inverse is not an additive inverse (+-), which is a reason why Larson prefers to use not the term "anti-matter (Alfven Hannes, 1966), to characterize the cosmic elements and particles. Material element and/or its cosmic element opposite are related as multiplicative inverses(*/).

Unit speed, (the speed of light), is neither a maximum nor minimum speed. Its true physical significance, according to the *Reciprocal System* is twofold. Unit speed is the uniform scalar rate of progression of empty and photon-filled space-time locations. As such it is the natural, preferred inertial frame of reference, in which all physical measurement is most appropriately and simply performed. The mathematical number unity rather than zero is the true physical zero.

Myth of Gravitational Collapse
Gravitational collapse is a scientific notion much employed by astro-physicists to explain a diversity of astronomical objects. The notion first was invoked to explain the ultradensity of the white dwarf stars. More extravagant forms of gravitational collapse, the neutron star and the black hole, are used to explain the ultradensity of stars even more dense than the white dwarf-- the pulsar (Manchester, Taylor, 1977).

Gravitational collapse is a scientific myth because it is built upon three propositions each now known to be contrary to fact. These questionable premises about gravitation and space-time are:

If gravitational force were the only universal force, the large-scale structure of the physical universe would have a center at which the spatial density of the stars and galaxies would be a maximum. Proceeding outwards from the putative center, the spacial density should continuously decrease until finally at great distances it should be replaced by an infinite void.

In fact, the physical universe is not so constructed. If the physical universe has a center, it is everywhere and anytime, as Comenius(1658) proposed.

In fact, the space-time continuum is interrupted by finitely divisible units of space and time. In fact, motion is a reciprocal relation between space and time. More space and less time mean faster motion. Less space and more time mean slower motion.

As a consequence of the discrete and reciprocal character of space and time, gravitational force manifests a repulsive side inside a natural unit of space (s0 = 0.456 E-5 cm) as well as the familiar attractive side outside the discrete space unit. Gravitational motion is naturally always a scalar motion always tending towards unity.

The space-time progression is naturally always a scalar motion tending away from unity. Outside a natural unit of space, the space time progression moves things apart and is the cause of the expansion (Hubble, 1936) and the openness (Pasachoff) of the physical universe. However, inside a unit of space, away from unity results in bringing physical objects closer to each other in space. Consequently, in the motion of solid cohesion the force of space-time progression plays the role of the attractive force.

Hence even in the solid phase of matter gravitational collapse can NOT be made to occur: atoms in solids have not been made to touch each other under maximum compression. Solid matter is a stable equilibrium product, a stable equilibrium between the attractive space-time progression force and the repulsive gravitational force.

When gravitational collapse is not found in the solid phase, it is not to be expected in the fluid phases of stellar and galactic matter. In short, gravitational collapse is a myth. Hence a different explanation must be sought for the ultradensity of certain astronomical compact objects as white dwarfs, pulsars, quasars, etc.

See the article "The Density Gradient in White Dwarf Stars, by D.B. Larson, RECIPROCITY Vol. XI, no. 2 ISSN:0276-4172.

For a remarkable analysis of how the sun really works including sunspots, see "Glimpses into the Structure of the Sun", Prof. K.V.K. Nehru, RECIPROCITY, Vol.XVII no. 2 and Vol. XVIII, no.1

REFERENCES

Abell, George. Explorations of the Universe. Third edition, Holt, Rhinehart and Winston. 1975

Alfven, Hannes. Worlds-Antiworlds. W.H.Freeman and Company. 1966.

Comenius, J.A. On learned Ignorance. 1658.

Frederick, L.W. and Baker, R.H. Astronomy, Tenth Edition. D. VanNostrand Company, 1976

Hubble, E,E. Realm of the Nebula. Yale University Press. 1936.

Larson, D.B. The structure of the Physical Universe. North Pacific Publishers. 1939

---- Nothing But Motion, North Pacific Publishers, 1979

---- Quasars and Pulsars. North Pacific Publishers, 1971.

---- The Case against the Nuclear Atom, North Pacific Publishers. 1961.

---- The Universe of Motion, North Pacific Publishers, 1984.

---- Basic Properties of Matter, International Society of Unified Science, Inc. 1988.
Salt Lake City, UT 84106

Satz, Ronald W. The Unmysterious Universe, Troy Printers, 1971.

Manchester, R.N. and Taylor, J.H. Pulsars. W.H. Freeman and Company. 1977

---- Popular Open Universe. Science News. Vol 117, 1980

Shrader-Frechette, K. Philosophy of Science September, 1977

Zelik, Michael. Astronomy. Second Edition. 1979

Originally published in RECIPROCITY
the Journal of the International Society of
Unified Science, Inc., Volume XI, no. 2