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Fission and fusion
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True or False? A nuclear power plant gets its energy from nuclear fission.
... and she is entering the final bend, dominant. This could be her turn to win the gooold!! Hey! I had an idea. - What? - Check out the periodic table.
Mercury has the atomic number 80, so it has 80 protons in the nucleus. Gold has 79 protons in the atomic nucleus. Okay? Shouldn't it be possible to create gold from mercury, if you removed one proton from each core? What?
Use that grey poison to make gold? That doesn't make sense at all! But kim is in fact right. You can make gold this way. Here is the nucleus of a mercury atom.
In it, there are 80 protons. -- If you shoot a neutron at it, that can merge with the nucleus. This new nucleus is unstable, and decays -- ... into a nucleus of 79 protons. An atomic nucleus of gold! But it's cheaper to buy gold, because this is an expensive and inefficient way of producing gold.
But it can be done. When the nucleus of an atom is split into several parts, for instance when it's hit by particles, it is called fission. The discovery of fission has meant a lot for mankind, for better or worse. It's a bad way of making gold, but it can be used as a source of energy. Watch this uranium isotope.
It is hit by a neutron, and is split into two new nuclei, while energy is released. Such a fission releases two or three new neutrons that are launched and in turn can hit new atomic nuclei. The pattern is repeated, and starts a chain reaction. A vast amount of energy is released. In controlled conditions, like in a nuclear power plant, the energy can be used to provide electricity for households and factories.
But if the chain reaction is uncontrolled, enormous amounts of energy can be released in a fraction of a second. That's what happens when an atomic bomb explodes. Wow, it's pretty amazing, nuclear fission. But is it good? -- Or bad? Yeah, there are different opinions about that.
Fission, splitting a heavy atomic nucleus, is not the only source of nuclear energy. It also happens that two light atomic nuclei merge. Here, two hydrogen nuclei collide and merge. The result is one helium nucleus, one free neutron, and a large amount of energy. This, the merging of atomic nuclei, is called fusion.
In the centre of the sun, fusion is what releases energy and makes it so hot. Fission -- an atomic nucleus is split into several smaller nuclei. Fusion -- two atomic nuclei merge into one larger nucleus. But hey? Who won?
Who won the gold? Oh, sorry...