why is neutron most commonly used for bombarding with non-fissionable elements?
106429
b/c the protons in the nucleus would repel protons fired at the atom and the electrons orbiting would repel any electrons fired at it.\njust remember that like charges repel each other.
218083
I assume you mean nuclear "bomb"...\n\nIn simplistic terms, and nothing you can't easily find elsewhere, a nuclear bomb is made up of material that fissions (meaning that its atoms can be split to release energy) - this is either Uranium-325 or Plutonium.  Uranium is found in nature but the vast majority is U-238 which doesn't fission - natural uranium must be enriched to create a fissionable amount of uranium - this is true for commercial power reactor fuel too.   Plutonium is made in nuclear reactors from bombarding other materials with neutrons.\n\nTo have a "nuclear yield" the fissionable material in a bomb must be forced into a 'critical mass' configuration which means that it is so dense (atoms close together) that once the material starts to fission and release energy and neutrons, other atoms will capture the released neutons and then they will fission releasing more energy and neutrons and so on and so on with the chain reaction making the boom.\n\nWith the early plutonium bombs (Fat Man), the material was in a sphere and was forced together with high explosives uniformly to create a ball (critical mass). In the first uranium bomb (Little Boy, which they didn't even test until it was dropped on Japan since they were confident it would work) 2 uranium blobs were forced together by essentially thrusting/throwing/shooting one to the other to create the critical mass.  The math behind all this physics is incredibly complex.\n\nTo add bang for the buck they started adding the gas Tritium, an isotope of hydrogen, hence the name Hydrogen bomb versus just the Atomic Bomb...  Tritium makes the yield much bigger.
322967
To the chemist no, to the physicist yes.A nuclear explosion destroys matter and from so doing releases energy.
548592
Atoms are the building blocks from which matter is formed. Everything around us is made up of atoms. Nuclear energy is contained within the center of the atom in a place known as the nucleus. Particles within the nucleus are held together by a strong force. If a large nucleus is split apart (fission), generous amounts of energy can be liberated. Small nuclei can also be combined (fusion) with an accompanying release of energy. Using this strong force that holds the nucleus together to produce energy is essentially what the field of nuclear power generation is about.\n  In the fission process certain heavy elements, such as some forms of Uranium, are split when a neutron strikes them. When they split, they release energy in the form of kinetic energy (heat) and radiation. The process not only produces energy but also additional neutrons that can be used to fission other Uranium nuclei and start a chain reaction.\n  In fusion, nuclei of light elements are brought together under conditions of high pressure and temperature, causing them to combine and produce new elements and energy.
780706
none, the 2 different bombs you are trying to get at are usually called atomic and hydrogen bombs\n\natomic (that was dropped over Japan 1946) is uncontrolled splitting (fission) of uranium whereas in the nuclear power reactors this is done slowly -- the reaction is controlled.\n\nhydrogen bomb was never tested over human population (only atoll Bikini) is a synthesis (fusion) of hydrogen into helium. This reaction produces the energy from the Sun and it is still in a research mode here on earth to get this reaction under control.\nIt would be much more effective source of energy than the nuclear one.
988797
Are you sure you are not mixing up your neutrino indexes? I believe that the neutrons are the ones that give off the more energy at rest, as electrons pass by they convey energy to other protons which is how elements are able to hold and give charges (positively and negatively charged ions). When a proton can pass energy to a neutron, the electrical balance is changed (+/-). Electons are then displaced, and (if the components involved are able to rearrange the atoms to create a different element structure, while giving off electrically charged ions), a fusion of chemical and electrical energy takes place releasing energy at a higher at-rest-rate (although this has not yet been scientifically proven, as this requires elements to approach the speed of light - leading to a comparitive slowdown of particles). This then produces photons (as such that are produced by UV/ X rays, and exist within light) which are more of a product of the fusion process, as opposed to the neutrino reaction within the core of atomic fusion.\n\nHope this helps with the confusion.
721125
fusion is when two elementary particles collide and combine or fuse to make -- even temporarily -- a new particle. In the graphic below, a form of the hydrogen nucleus -- Tritium -- collides with another form of the hydrogen nucleus -- Deuterium -- to form a new particle. (Deuterium and Tritium are isotopes of hydrogen -- a form of water.) The fused particle is not stable, and quickly decays via the split decay mode into a neutron -- moving very fast, i.e., "hot" -- and a helium neucleus -- also know as an "alpha" particle and energy.\nThe radioactive by-products from fission are undeniably bad. They last for tens of thousands of years and can cause untold problems, the worst of which is through terrosists using the waste products for weapons. The fast neutron from fusion can potentially interact with metals a cause them to become radioactive. This process can be minimized by have neutron shielding between the fusion burn and any metals in the reactor. However, the radioactive metals produced -- and any ash from the fusion burn itself -- is a low-level radioactivity that is not considered dangerous, with half-lives in the tens of years. There is no comparison -- radioactive waste from fission is very dangerous, radioactive waste from fusion is not very dangerous.\nIt is hard for most people to understand where this energy comes from, and how much it is. Most people have heard of Einstein's famous equation:\n\nE = mc2\n\nWhen the fusion reactions listed above occur, a small amount of mass disappears. The small amount of mass is converted into a large amount of energy. How much is large? A typical chemical reaction in which hydrogen and oxygen combine to produce water, releases about 1 eV of energy. The fusion process typically releases 1,000,000 times as much energy. Historically, when people talk about the benefits of nuclear fusion, they refer to how much fuel must be burned to equal to each other.\nNuclear fusion takes water, burns it, releases helium (and a small amount of radiation in the form of neutrons), and converts the missing mass into massive amounts of energy.
701573
a radioactive element is unstable because it has too many neutrons in its nucleus.
101213
You may already know the answer, but I'll give you credit for wording it precisely.\n\nThe answer is more than one (on average), because neutron losses mean it would be impossible to sustain a critical nuclear reaction (that is, a constant rate of nuclear reactions) if you had one or less than one (on average) per reaction, since it takes at least one neutron to cause a nuclear reaction.\n\nThe exact reaction that occurs and the byproducts produced will determine exactly how many you get per individual reaction, but *on average* you need to net >1.0 neutrons per reaction.  The more losses you have (due to poor shielding, absorbant material, etc.), the higher the number needs to be, but something like 1.2-1.5 should be fine.
426598
What is criticality ? \nIf all the neutrons emitted by the fission of nuclei (two or three in uranium and plutonium) were to induce fissioning of other nuclei, the process would multiply at a very fast rate. However, neutrons can be lost due to various reasons. They could escape from the material or they could be absorbed by the nuclei in various processes that do not result in fission. The number of neutrons available for fission, namely the number produced minus the number lost to other processes, determines whether the fission rate increases or decreases with time. The number of neutrons lost depends on the size of the assembly. It will be larger for smaller sizes since more neutrons will escape in smaller sized assemblies. It also depends on the density of fissile nuclei in the assembly--the higher the density, the more the chances of a neutron being captured by other nuclei and so the number of neutrons lost will be smaller. For the same reason, fewer neutrons will be lost with increasing purity of the material. \n\nIf, on the average, more neutrons are lost than produced, then the rate of fission would decrease with time and the whole process would die out. Such an assembly is said to be subcritical. If the number lost is exactly equal to the number produced, the assembly is critical. The chain reaction will then proceed at a constant rate. Finally, if the number produced exceeds the number lost, then the assembly is supercritical. \n\nAn idea of the amount of material required for an assembly to be critical is given by the critical mass, the mass of pure material for which this self-sustaining chain reaction occurs. A typical critical mass for a sphere of pure uranium could be anything from 16 to 52 kg, depending on the particular isotope considered. \n\nIn a nuclear reactor, the assembly is designed so that the criticality can be precisely controlled. It can be adjusted to be subcritical, critical or slightly supercritical. \n\nA nuclear weapon is designed so that a subcritical assembly can suddenly be made supercritical. The critical mass of a fissile material decreases rapidly when the density of the material increases. A sub-critical assembly can be made critical or super-critical merely by compressing it, a process used in many weapons.
739824
In "hydrogen" bombs, lithium deuteride, a solid, (lithium hydride with deuterium as the hydrogen isotope) is typically used.  When bombarded with neutrons from the primary fission bomb, the lithium decays to tritium adding to the fusion explosion.  Gaseous hydrogen is NOT used in these devices.
1048613
Non-radioactive elements are virtually indestructible at the atomic level, unless you're using a nuclear reactor or an atom smasher.  Even if you dissolve gold in aqua regia, the gold atoms are still there, just combined with other atoms in some compound, and could be extracted from the compound by some chemical reaction.\n\nBeing "indestructible" is not really the quality for which gold is prized.  It's that it will still be bright and pure even after years, since it doesn't oxidize, unlike silver, which tarnishes.  Gold can be melted down and recast any number of times, a quality known as "fungibility".
562664
Nuclear waste or any radiological material deteriorates in its radioactive properties at a set rate determined by spin of rates of the neutrons that orbit the nucelus of the specific molecule in question. This rate is know as a half life or the time it takes for half the neutrons to spin off. This can only be accelarated by forecfully adding electrons to the molecules of the material, which is another radiological procedure that requires large amounts of electricity.  A very expensive process.  Chemicals have virtualy no effect toward accelarating half rates.
177603
It depends on how the bomb is designed.\n\n"The most efficient pure fission bomb possible would still only consume ~25% of its fissile material before being blown apart, and can often be much less efficient (Fat Man only had an efficiency of 14%, Little Boy only about 1.4% efficient)."
196869
You get an antineutrino from the decay of a neutron, giving a proton, an electron and an antineutrino. The reason you get those decays is that heavy nuclei (like Uranium, Plutonium) have many more neutrons than protons. Light stable nuclei have about the same number of protons as neutrons. So after a heavy nucleus undergoes fission, you get lighter nuclei with too many neutrons compared to protons. It is energetically good for them to change some of the neutrons into protons through beta decay. Hope it helps.
386839
Only U-235 and Pu-239 and slow neutrons. fast neutrons just pass through. Uranium has some spontaneous fission. \nCollisions with moderate size atoms will leave the new atom spinning and it can then fission. \nAlphas lose a lot of energy just overcoming the coumb barrier then the protons/neutrons are absorbed more than splitting.
263539
Neutrons can give a nucleus (the core of an atom) stability. They act a little bit like glue to the protons.