Word: fissionability
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...most of the U.S. public the hydrogen bomb was still a direful novelty last week, but to scientists there was little new about it. Long before the discovery of uranium fission they had known that familiar, plentiful hydrogen could make prime nuclear fuel. They had even demonstrated on a laboratory scale some of its nuclear reactions. They could not make the process work practically, but whenever they felt discouraged, they looked up at the shining sun whose radiation, derived from hydrogen, is the vital force of the world...
...Fission v. Fusion. The new-style "fusion" of hydrogen and the old-style "fission" of uranium have a family resemblance. Both depend on the odd and unexplained fact that atomic nuclei do not weigh as much as the sum of the individual nucleons (protons and neutrons) which they contain. It is as if a dozen apples in a paper bag did not weigh as much as the same apples spilled out on the kitchen table and weighed separately...
...Uranium fission works by dividing large "bushel basket" nuclei. When a uranium nucleus splits in two, forming two smaller nuclei such as krypton and barium, the weight of all fragments added together is less than that of the original uranium. The weight-loss turns into free energy...
...forming "paperbag" nuclei out of smaller units. Deuterium (heavy hydrogen), for instance, has one proton and one neutron in its nucleus. When two deuterium nuclei are fused together, they form a helium nucleus (two protons and two neutrons) that weighs less than two deuterium nuclei. As in uranium fission the weight loss turns into free energy. It is this fusion of lighter nuclei into helium that will power the hydrogen bomb...
Spreading the Uranium. There may be much military importance in two side effects of the new fusion techniques. In fission bombs, a great deal of the uranium is scattered before it can react. But in a hydrogen bomb, even a small one, the ingredients packed around the uranium core could be induced to generate a large number of free neutrons. These would make more of the uranium react, thus stepping up the efficiency of the core's explosion...