I know that other things are used like hydrogen, but as far as I know, uranium is more common. If all you need is to split an atom to create a nuclear explosion, why use a rare earth metal instead of something more abundant since everything is made of atoms?
In: Physics
Splitting an atom is actually really difficult, uranium (at least the isotopes being used) by nature is radioactive and naturally falls apart. That makes it much easier to forcibly split. Someone else can give you a much more detailed explanation but nuclear explosions have steps leading to the actual split.
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