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

Basically, the natural state of elements likes stability. The state of an element being unstable is defined by it’s natural attempts to reach stability, either by shedding subatomic particles or by bonding to something else.

When we make nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons, we are creating our own unstable isotopes of elements. In a really simplified way, what we are doing is finding the most unstable versions of elements from nature, and then bombarding them with sub-atomic particles until they are as unstable as they can be without being volatile.

And then when we talk about starting a reaction, either for reactors or for weapons, we are further bombarding those elements, in an enclosed space to increase the chance of the reaction going critical (up to 100% chance).

None of that happens readily in nature. Even if unstable isotopes form in nature, they are likely more stable than what we use in reactors, and even if there are very, very unstable isotopes, they likely won’t be bombarded with subatomic particles to the point that they would create a reaction, and even if they did create a reaction, they likely wouldn’t have the contained space or sustained particles to maintain the reaction. So in nature, they are rarer.

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