How does simply splitting one atom expel so much energy? There’s no way that much energy could fit into a hydrogen atom. There’s only one electron, which has the energy. How does one atom make a big explosion?
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>There’s only one electron, which has the energy. How does one atom make a big explosion?
One electron per hydrogen atom, yeah. But who said the bomb is only reacting one atom!?
**One** ***gram*** **of hydrogen has 602,252,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms.** If you get even a little energy from each one, that’s a shitload of energy.
(and yes as others have said, H-bombs are nuclear *fusion* bombs, fusing hydrogen atoms together into helium atoms. That’s the same reaction happening in the sun. By “splitting atoms” you’re thinking of nuclear *fission* bombs, like the ones used in WW2 on Japan. They split uranium atoms into smaller atoms, and have nothing to do with hydrogen. But again, an unfathomably gigantic number of atoms are being split in one bomb, that huge explosion isn’t coming from 1 atom splitting!)
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