3-9 Nuclear Reactions: Fusion

(11.5 pg 327-331)

• The Sun is a giant nuclear furnace but unlike the nuclear reactors that we use on Earth the Sun uses nuclear fusion.

• Nuclear fusion is when two or more nuclei are fused together.

• Fusion creates an enormous amount of energy (e.g. see Table 1&2 p.328).

• Even though we understand how nuclear fusion works, so far we have not been able to create a nuclear fusion power plant.

• The desire to do so is high because it would produce no radioactive waste (the biggest concern with fission reactors).

• Also, in theory it would provide more power.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd6M85XlKGU

• While we have not been able to make a power plant using fusion, we have been able to build nuclear fusion weapons (called hydrogen bombs, or ‘H-bombs’).

• In 1952, the first fusion bomb was detonated, and made a mushroom cloud 150 km wide and 42 km high (Fig.2 p.329). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJe7fY-yowk

• Nuclear fusion takes place in stars (Fig.3 p.330), like our Sun.

• In fact, you owe your existence to stars since fusion inside stars is what creates all atoms heavier than helium.

• When the stars blows up it spreads this matter throughout the universe.

• Some people call stars “God’s recycling program”.