Hi, my name is Rich Levinson, and the reason I am developing this web site is to follow up on the work I did on X-ray pulsars between 1971 and 1973, when I worked at American Science and Engineering in Cambridge, MA, where I worked on processing data from the Uhuru X-ray Astronomy Satellite on the team led by Riccardo Giacconi, the recognized founder of X-ray Astronomy.

That work included my personally making the discoveries that both the Cen X-3 and Her X-1 pulsars are members of close binary eclipsing systems and that because the binaries are so close that their x-rays are obviously fueled by pulsars interacting with the atmospheres of their respective companions.

In addition, I discovered that unlike all the other isolated pulsars known at that time that had spin rates that were slowing down, the spin rates of the binary x-ray pulsars had spin rates that were actually speeding up.

After 1973, I transitioned my career into software engineering, where I remained until I recently retired and have more time to dedicate to this work on binary x-ray pulsars. However, the experience of those discoveries about Cen X-3 and Her X-1 left a lasting impression on me and I continued to try to resolve the puzzle the behavior of these pulsars left in my mind.

The complementary behavior between isolated spinning-down pulsars and binary spinning-up pulsars presented a problem in my mind that since pulsars are basically simply spinning neutron stars, there must be some common explanation for the existence of both the isolated and the binary pulsars.

The solution to this puzzle came to me in October 1974 in the course of the following event:

On October 6, 1974, after my wife, Betsy, and I, brought our first child, Rob, into the world, I later that morning had some moments of deep reflection.

As my mind wandered, I suddenly realized that there is a fundamental contradiction in the theory that supernova explosions create neutron star pulsars, which I could never resolve with the earlier discoveries that I had made.

The contradiction that is covered in depth on this web site, is that, if supernova explosions are associated with fast pulsars that are spinning down, and close binary pulsars are slow and spinning up, then the explanation that the supernova produced the pulsar must be false, and the opposite must be true, because a fast pulsar in a close binary that speeds it up, cannot slow down. i.e. it must be that the pulsar caused the supernova explosion.

In the years following my 1974 discovery of the contradiction and its implications, Betsy, Rob, and our other two children, Peter and Hillary, have encouraged me to keep this theory alive, and so, as a result, the Secret of the Pulsars, as explained by the Neutron Star (NS) Capture Theory is now ready to be introduced to all who may be interested.

This web site is dedicated to exploring the implications of this logic, which leads us to a whole new conceptualization for understanding the observations of the many branches of astrophysics.

I invite your comments and related information on the topic. www.secretofthepulsars.com