Freaky Fzx Friday - Splitting the Nucleus

We've known for a long time that stars fuse little nuclei into bigger ones.  That's where they get the energy to keep us warm.  We've had data on nuclear masses for a long time - we calculated the mass per nucleon for all the nuclei and the graph looked like this.

We knew that nuclear fusion converted mass to energy according to

and we also knew that iron was the biggest element that would yield energy from fusion.  If a star, therefore, started fusing anything larger than #26 it'd start cooling and no longer be able to continue the fusion process.  All elements above # 26 are produced in that violent process during the death of a star known as a supernova.

If we take a look at the graph above we see that the mass/nucleon slopes down in both directions toward iron.  That means that splitting bigger elements would release energy just like fusion.

It wasn't until 1939 that we were able to do it, but we got a LOT of energy from those fissions.  A lot more energy per reaction results from fission than than from any chemical reaction.

See those extra neutrons that result?  They can cause other reactions.  All we needed was the conditions for a chain reaction to give us nuclear energy or nuclear weapons.  Or both.

Next time - The Manhattan Project