Energy Production in Stars

Fourth day of creation: The search for a history of star formation

“…Similarly, as work led up to Bethe's (1939) synthesis of our understanding of hydrogen burning in stars, it became clear that a few billion years was a perfectly reasonable age for stars of, say, 0.5 -2.0 MQ, but that very massive ones could live on hydrogen fusion or similar reaction for only millions of years (Gamow 1938). Bethe (1939) said firmly that. the B stars must have been born comparatively recently, "by what process we cannot say."…”

The origin and abundances of the chemical elements revisited

“…Second, the rest masses and other properties of the three families may be such that neutrino oscillation as catalyzed by the presence of nuclei turns many of the Ve into vu (Mikhayev and Smirnov 1986;Wolfenstein 1978). The latter is called the MSW effect after the initials of its discoverers and has been endorsed by Bethe (1989) who unquestionably hold the record for length of time spent thinking about hydrogen burning (Bethe 1939). This kind of oscillation can reduce the flux of ve to well below one-third of that coming out of the nuclear reactions, because once the particles leave the sun, there are no nuclei around to catalyze the reverse process.…”

Clusters: Age Scales for Stellar Physics

“…3.1.1 Open clusters: turn off ages Few years after it was recognized the nuclear burning was the energy sources of the stars (Bethe 1939), Sandage & Schwarzschild (1952) identified how the evolution off the main sequence and the position in the HR diagram could be used to estimate the age of giants (and globular clusters, see below).…”

“…What physicists did not know was that complete new branch of physics was at hand: relativity and quantum mechanics. Eventually the nuclear reactions were identified as the culprit (Bethe 1939). This is an important lesson: pieces which do not match in this enormous puzzle (our understanding of natural phenomena) do provide, eventually, very interesting hints for new avenues and discoveries.…”