Ken Glasziou, Qld., Australia

    On the basis that the Urantia revelation was given to us in the 1934/5 period, I have previously considered certain statements in The Urantia Book to be prophetic. Among these were descriptions of the force that holds the atomic nucleus together, also the so-called weak force of radio-active decay, and the role of the neutrino in supernova explosions. Through his exploration of human sources for Urantia Book materials, Matthew Block has now discovered scientific papers, published in the early 1940's, that very obviously provided source material for what I had considered to be prophetic statement.
    In the world of science, publication date is the normal criterion for claims to originality in authorship. Hence the year 1955, when The Urantia Book was first published, would be the normal date to evaluate possible prophetic material from that book. However, on the basis of firm assurances from former members of the group known as the Forum that was concerned with receipt and subsequent publication of the Papers, and also from one-time trustees of the Urantia Foundation (two), I accepted that no alterations had been made to the original text either after the original date of receipt or since the first printing.

    Matthew's work, plus other discoveries, have shown these assurances to have been unmerited. Matthew has now provided me with copies of original papers from the early 1940's period that are indisputably source papers for statements in the book that I examined in previous articles. To be reviewed in this and the next Innerface are: G. Gamow, Neutrinos VS Supernovae, Science Monthly (January 1942), and C. W. Sheppard, The Evanescent Mesotron, Scientific American (October 1940).

    It is unfortunate that I made the error of not sticking to the established practice of using publication date to establish priorities. It has now transpired that a long-suppressed document written by Dr. Sadler has come to light that clearly states that extra material was added to the Urantia Papers by the revelators between 1935 and 1942.

    My error in using a starting date of 1935 affects only a relatively small volume of the prophetic materials uncovered in The Urantia Book. And even for the material under review, all is not lost since there are interesting departures and omissions by the Urantia Paper author from what the human authors of the source papers actually wrote. On page 464, the book states:
    In those suns which are encircuited in the space-energy channels, solar energy is liberated by various complex nuclear-reaction chains, the most common of which is the hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction. In this metamorphosis, carbon acts as an energy catalyst since it is in no way actually changed by this process of converting hydrogen into helium. Under certain conditions of high temperature the hydrogen penetrates the carbon nuclei. Since the carbon cannot hold more than four such protons, when this saturation state is attained, it begins to emit protons as fast as new ones arrive. In this reaction the ingoing hydrogen particles come forth as a helium atom. (464)

    The above description comes from work of Hans Bethe who described the so-called carbon cycle for energy production in stars in 1939. In actuality, this hydrogen-carbon-helium reaction occurs mainly in stars hotter than our sun. For cooler stars like our sun, Bethe and Critchfield (1938) described a different sequence of reactions, called the proton-proton chain, that is responsible for the hydrogen to helium conversion. Quoting Bethe's work, Gamow states that the carbon cycle is the "particular nuclear reaction...responsible for the energy production in the sun and all other stars of the main sequence"-- which is a little strange since it was known to be incorrect at the time he wrote. The Urantia Paper author has not repeated that error.

    The "space energy channels" in the Urantia Paper passage are Urantia Book terminology and are unknown to science. They are channels by which energy encircuits the material creations, with origin and destiny in the Isle of Paradise. Stars directly in those channels can "feed" on that energy and burn indefinitely. Stars not too far off apparently can partially maintain themselves, while those far off become exhausted when their own fuel supply burns out.
    Gamow estimates that our sun will decrease its hydrogen content from 35% to 1% in the next 10 billion years. Long before that time, our planet would be uninhabitable. Contradicting Gamow, on p. 465 The Urantia Book states that our sun will function at its present efficiency for another 25 billion years. Possibly this means that our sun is at least partially encircuited on the "space-energy channels."

    Urantia Paper 41 has, "Reduction of hydrogen content increases the luminosity of a sun. In the suns destined to burn out, the height of luminosity is attained at the point of hydrogen exhaustion. Subsequent to this point, brilliance is maintained by the resultant process of gravity contraction. Eventually, such a star will become a so-called white dwarf, a highly condensed sphere." (464)

    Gamow states as follows: "Since the nuclear reactions transforming hydrogen to helium cause definite changes in the physical properties of stellar matter, one should expect changes of the observed characteristics of the star itself...the steady decrease of the hydrogen content in the star must lead to a quite considerable increase of its luminosity...