eli5: why does fusing 2 hydrogen together produce energy
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Atoms are made out of sub-atomic particles.
Specifically protons and neutrons.
The number of protons an atom has determines what sort of element it is. For example any atom with 8 protons is oxygen, 29 protons means copper and 92 is Uranium.
The number of neutrons an atom has doesn’t change what element it is but might change how radioactive it is.
Atoms also have electrons. Usually in the same number as protons. The electrons is where the chemistry happens.
The protons and neutrons in the core or nucleus is where nuclear stuff happens.
The neutrons and protons in the core are held together by a force that we don’t really have at a human scale but is sort of like magnetism or gravity. it pulls the particles together.
It takes a lot more energy to hold very small or very big atoms together. So if you can split up a large atom or merge two small ones you need less energy to hold them together and there is some extra energy left over.
This is why you can split a large atom like Uranium apart and have energy left over and also merge two small hydrogen atoms in a helium atom and also have energy left over.
You don’t really produce energy as such you just free energy up from the tasks of holding the nucleus together.
Hydrogen is the smallest possible atom. So you can gain the most energy by fusing those together.
you could get slightly less energy b fusing other not quite as small atoms together.
Somewhere in the middle of the periodic table is iron it is about as stable as it gets and you can gain no energy by either splitting it apart or fusing it together. No matter which direction you move from there you end up with something that requires more energy to hold it together.
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