How does Einstein’s famous E=mc2 relate to a nuclear bomb?

Question

I get the basics, energy equal mass times velocity squared, but how does that create a nuclear reaction large enough to make a bomb?

In: Physics

Answer 1

As the others have said there is a lot of energy in mass.

So what does that mean with a nuclear bomb?

Let’s take a real life example.

The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a core of 64kg of uranium. It wasn’t a very efficient bomb so about 1kg of that uranium underwent fission. Of that 1kg less than 1g was converted to energy through the splitting of uranium atoms (this released the energy that held them together). The explosion was equivalent to about 15 THOUSAND tons of TNT. This killed about 70,000 people instantly.