Nuclear energy the energy stored in the nucleus of an atom and released through fission, fusion, or radioactivity. In these processes a small amount of mass is converted to enormous amounts of energy according to the relationship E = mc2, where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light.
Nuclear fission was first discovered in 1938 by two scientist whose names are Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman. Hahn and Strassman's experiment wass supposed to be a repetition on Enrico Fermi's earlier experiment which produced Neptunium-239 after the bombardment of Uranium-238. To their dismay, Hahn and Strassman produced barium in their experiment which was unjustly ruled as an impurity. They also noticed a missing amount of matter during this reaction which contradicted the Law of Conservation of Matter. These scientists were unfortunate in explaining what had just happened in their experiment. Their experiment was later interpreted correctly by Lise Meitner 1939. Meitner concluded that a Uranium nucleus had split during this reaction producing a source of tremendous amount of energy along with the Barium and other elements. Meitner's conclusions were not proved until later investigations.
Nuclear Fission can be used in two ways: to aid or to injure. The aiding portion consists of providing electrical energy to power the machines that simplify life's daily tasks. Unfortunately, fission can also be used to power weapons of mass destruction such as the atomic bomb.
Most elements have very stable atoms which are very hard to split except by nuclear bombardment and particle accelerators. Uranium is the one element that can be split fairly easy. .
There are two isotopes of Uranium which are U-238 and U-235. U-238 consists of 146 neutrons and 92 protons while the U-235 consists of only 143 neutrons and 92 protons. U-235 has atoms that can be split which can be useful in making atomic bombs unlike U-238.
