why splitting uranium releases energy but we haven’t see any stray (random) nuclear explosion in natural ore deposits?

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And if splitting atom releases energy, why haven’t these energy break from their atom themselves? Isn’t that means the force that bind the atoms are bigger than the energy released?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

In answer to your first question: Natural uranium decay is a slow process, and uranium tends not to be very concentrated in ore. So, the combination of slow decay and low concentration can’t really cause a runaway reaction.

As to your second and third questions: Imagine a bunch of strong springs stuffed into a box. That is similar to what is happening in a big atom, where there is a struggle between the binding “strong nuclear” force and the repulsive “electromagnetic force”. For reasons we do not fully understand, the lid of the box fails, and the springs all come flying out. The potential energy is turned into kinetic energy. The decay products of the uranium are like the springs, and they can collide into other atoms, or collide into electrons. The end result is a lot of ionizations, heat, photons of light, and in a highly enriched environment, the flying springs can start knocking the lids off other boxes, causing the decay process to accelerate.

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