Neutron Formation and Decay as a Reversible Polarity‑State Inversion

Neutron decay provides one of the clearest empirical windows into the internal structure of matter, yet its most fundamental implications remain underexamined. When a free neutron decays in a vacuum, the observable products are always the same: a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino. No additional substructure is detected, and no quark-level intermediates appear in the decay signature. Conversely, neutron formation through electron capture exhibits the reverse sequence: the proton and electron vanish, a neutron appears, and a neutrino carries away the excess energy. This symmetry suggests that neutron formation is a reversible state transition between two charge-distributed configurations rather than a rearrangement of unobserved quark constituents. In this interpretation, the neutrino is not a structural component but the energetic dispersion required when the proton–electron system inverts its internal polarity pattern. This paper examines the empirical evidence for this inversion model and evaluates its implications for nuclear structure, conservation laws, and the interpretation of weak-interaction processes.