That was bad luck with the downvoting, I have heard the gravitational narrative of stellar evolution and element creation before, perhaps in a Feynman lecture?

That was bad luck with the downvoting, I have heard the gravitational narrative of stellar evolution and element creation before, perhaps in a Feynman lecture? I recall the idea that a cloud of hydrogen atoms has more gravitational potential than the equivalent cloud of heavier elements, basically because the matter is more evenly dispersed. It seems to make a certain sense. Particles get very fast when they close distance, if they can then stick together their kinetic energy has to become something. Interesting to calculate the gravitational energy involved in a neutron and proton getting close enough to be held by each others nuclear forces, beginning from an average separation of say a few microns? I know they have to get through repulsive nuclear forces in order to stick, I don't know if the reaction always liberates kinetic energy. Maybe it depends on what element results. An interesting topic of stellar fusion should be supernova reaction/s. The creation of heavier elements there can clearly release enough kinetic energy to explode the condensed body. Does that energy owe to the distance that has been closed by particles forming heavier elements, or to loss of mass in the nuclear reactions? I wonder about the gravitational energy of a cloud of billard balls rather than atoms. If another cloud has the same volume but half the number of larger balls that are twice as heavy. I guess if the two clouds have the same size, weight and density, they have the same gravitational potential - if they start cold, they will both implode with the same force at the center. But this seems to contradict the narrative that conversion of hydrogen to helium should consume or liberate that potential energy.