the.com/fission
splitting one atom to unleash the energy that runs cities and ends arguments
means The splitting of something into parts — especially the splitting of an atomic nucleus into smaller nuclei, releasing a burst of energy, or the division of a cell or organism into two.
from From Latin 'fissio,' meaning a cleaving or splitting, from the verb 'findere,' to split or cleave — the same root that gives us 'fissure,' a crack in rock. The biological sense (cells dividing) came first in the 19th century; the nuclear sense was borrowed for physics in the late 1930s, when scientists found that an atom, like stone, could be cleft in two.
- discovery year
- explained in 1938 over a Christmas walk
- chain reaction
- one split triggers two, then four, then chaos
- tiny fuel
- one uranium pellet equals a ton of coal
- first reactor
- built under a Chicago squash court in 1942
- mass to energy
- lost mass becomes pure power via E=mc²
trinity test — first nuclear fission bomb detonated in new mexico, july 16, 1945
chernobyl disaster — nuclear fission reactor explosion in ukraine that killed thousands, april 26, 1986
fukushima daiichi — japanese nuclear fission plant meltdown from 2011 tsunami, displaced 154,000 people