Word: droplet
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...brought into play new words, familiar in other fields of science but not so in atomic physics. The splitting of the uranium nucleus is described as a "fission," which, in biology, means division of an organism into two or more parts. The big nucleus has been compared to a "droplet." When a neutron of the right energy strikes it, the new energy is shared by all the components of the nucleus so that the "surface tension" fails to hold it together. Therefore it splits...