Where does all the energy come from?
In: 10
The nucleus is made out of particles called protons. These little things have something called charge which lets them push and pull on other things with charge, similar to magnets. Now the push protons put on each other gets stupidly big when they get really close in the nucleus. It takes an equally stupid amount of energy to keep them together. It’s not very much on our scale but for their size, it enormous.
Imagine holding the north pole of two magnets close together. The closer they get the stronger you have to work to keep them together. Now try to hold 92 of them together. This would be an analogy for a single uranium atom.
When this atom “splits” its like you’re letting go of the magnets. All that energy you were using gets released. If you do this with 1 kilogram of uranium metal, it does this a quadrillion more times. That’s a lot of energy getting released. If it’s done fast, that’s a nuclear bomb. If you can let it leak out, that’s nuclear power.
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