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Nuclear fission was discovered in December 1938 by chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann and physicists Lise Meitner and Otto Robert Frisch. Fission is a nuclear reaction or radioactive decay process in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller, lighter nuclei and often other particles.
In nuclear fission events the nuclei may break into any combination of lighter nuclei, but the most common event is not fission to equal mass nuclei of about mass 120; the most common event (depending on isotope and process) is a slightly unequal fission in which one daughter nucleus has a mass of about 90 to 100 daltons and the other the ...
So from Møller's remark the exciting vision arose that by assembling enough pure uranium (with appropriate care!) one might start a controlled chain reaction and liberate nuclear energy on a scale that really mattered. [22] The news of the discovery of fission was brought to America by Bohr in January 1939. [23]
In 1944, Hahn received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of nuclear fission, although Fritz Strassmann had been acknowledged as an equal collaborator in the discovery. [13] [14] From 1939 to 1946 working at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute, Strassman contributed to research on the fission products of thorium, uranium, and neptunium.
This fission occurs when atomic nuclei grab free neutrons and form heavy, but unstable, elements. When it comes to nuclear energy , human engineering and the rest of the universe are a bit at odds.
Otto Hahn (German: [ˈɔtoː ˈhaːn] ⓘ; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the field of radiochemistry.He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and discoverer of nuclear fission, the science behind nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons.
The first light bulbs ever lit by electricity generated by nuclear power at EBR-1 at Argonne National Laboratory-West, 20 December 1951. [12] As the first liquid metal cooled reactor, it demonstrated Fermi's breeder reactor principle to maximize the energy obtainable from natural uranium, which at that time was considered scarce.
The result was a scientific wonder, a feat that researchers had hoped to create in a laboratory since scientists first started bandying about the idea of using controlled nuclear fusion to produce ...