Word: fissionable
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...most of the protons missed their targets, the hydrogen-lithium reaction gave a net loss of energy, and no one knew how to improve its efficiency. Other reactions of light elements yielded theoretical energy too, but all of them were overshadowed by the wartime development of atom-splitting uranium fission...
This was an exciting and ominous prospect, but the trouble with fusion reactions is that they are not self-starting; uranium fission is. When a sufficient amount (critical mass) of U-235 is assembled, a single, slow-moving neutron can start an atom-splitting chain reaction in it and make the whole chunck explode. Light elements are not so accommodating. Their atoms must be slammed together violently to make them group into larger atoms and yield energy...
Ordinary-high temperatures, attainable by chemical means, are not nearly high enough, but the center of an exploding uranium-fission bomb (more than 50,000,000° C.) is as hot or hotter than the interior of the sun. Before the first atom bomb exploded, physicists were speculating as to whether atom bombs might serve as "detonators" to start fusion explosions...
...under the Atomic Energy Commission, which is pushing similar work with beams of nitrogen and other large nuclei in many parts of the U.S. The AEC's long-range interest can be guessed at. When a nitrogen atom can be made to hit U-238, not normally considered fissionable, it almost always causes fission. When it forms Element 99, it liberates five free neutrons, and these are capable of causing fission too. AEC may be feeling for a new method of releasing atomic energy from difficult...
...willing to talk it over. Dulles suggested a preliminary exchange of views in Washington, and last week the Kremlin agreed. Two days later, the Atomic Energy Commission announced that this month "men and materials will begin moving to the Pacific proving grounds [for] weapons tests of all categories," i.e., fission and thermonuclear...