Nuclear Fission and Fusion

Nuclear Fission: The process in which a heavy nucleus is broken into two roughly equal nuclei by bombarding the heavy nucleus with slow neutrons is called nuclear fission. The resultant nuclei are called "fission fragments".

During nuclear reaction, the total mass of the products is always less than the mass of the original nucleus. The difference in mass is converted into energy in accordance with Einstein's mass-energy equivalence equation E=(mc)(mc) where m is mass, e is energy and c is the velocity of light.




Nuclear Fusion: The combination of two or more light nuclei to form a heavy nucleus with the liberation of a large amount of energy is called nuclear fusion. The energy liberated in the fusion reaction is called thermonuclear energy.