Why does splitting an atom create energy? And why is it so much energy?
In: 132
There is no such thing as a solid thing, everything is energy. Magnets are a good example of forces that make something feel solid when there isn’t something physical present (repulsion). What you are playing with is mass when you are dealing with atoms (energy packets). E=mc² is saying that you get the amount of energy that is equal to the mass of something multiplied by the velocity of the speed of light (big number) – that is assuming perfect conversion. Either way, it’s a boat load of energy and you’re undoing the binding that holds it together.
Splitting an atom causes others to split. The initial explosion using a conventional bomb is just to create enough force to split that initial atom. There are a lot of atoms in things. There are more molecules of water in a cup of water than there are cups of water on earth. So you’re getting a lot of atoms. But they’re small. The only real way to answer “why so much energy” is with an eli5 of “because that’s how much energy is in atoms”. It’s kind of like asking why 1+1=2, the fundamental properties of physics dictate how much gets stuffed in there and it happened to be quite a bit.
Latest Answers