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Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei (for example, nuclei of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium), combine to form one or more atomic nuclei and neutrons. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the release or absorption of energy .
For heavy nuclides, it is an exothermic reaction which can release large amounts of energy both as electromagnetic radiation and as kinetic energy of the fragments (heating the bulk material where fission takes place). Like nuclear fusion, for fission to produce energy, the total binding energy of the resulting elements must be greater than ...
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation of at least one nuclide to another.
Conventional fission power reactors also cause artificial transmutation, not from the power of the machine, but by exposing elements to neutrons produced by fission from an artificially produced nuclear chain reaction. For instance, when a uranium atom is bombarded with slow neutrons, fission takes place.
Advances in the potential energy source may not be about electricity, at least at first.
In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series or "positive feedback loop" of these reactions. The specific nuclear reaction may be the fission of heavy isotopes (e.g., uranium-235 ...
It is the mechanism of interaction between subatomic particles that is responsible for the radioactive decay of atoms: The weak interaction participates in nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. The theory describing its behaviour and effects is sometimes called quantum flavordynamics ( QFD ); however, the term QFD is rarely used, because the weak ...
Nuclear fission, or the splitting of atoms, releases a massive amount of energy in a chain reaction. Fission reactions have been channeled productively into nuclear power plants and destructively ...