Question

How are fusion and fission similar?

Answer 1

As we know that fission and fusion are the two physical mechanisms that basically creates large quantities of energy. Fusion takes place when two atoms like two atoms of hydrogen combine to form one atom of helium, that is a heavier element is being formed.

Complete step by step answer:
- As we know that fusion and fission are similar in the way that both of these release large amounts of energy. It is found that nuclear fusion is the process in which a large nucleus is formed when two nuclei join together. We can see an example here:
$\begin{aligned} & {}_{5}^{10}B+{}_{2}^{4}He+{}_{7}^{13}N+{}_{0}^{1}n+energy \\\ & {}_{92}^{235}U+{}_{0}^{1}n\to {}_{56}^{142}Ba+{}_{36}^{91}Kr+{}_{0}^{1}n+energy \\\ \end{aligned}$
- The main concept in this case is how tightly the nucleons are held together in the nucleus. It is found that if a nuclear reaction produces nuclei that are having more tightly bound nuclei than that of the original, their large amount of energy will be released.
- It is found that the most tightly bound nuclei are around the size of iron. As we know that if we split a nucleus that is very large in size than that of the iron element, we will get small fragments, here we can see that as the smaller fragments are at lower energy than the original nucleus. Hence, energy will be released.
- Hence, we can say that fusion and fission similar to energy is released in both of these processes.

Note: - As we have discussed about the similarity in the process of fission and fusion. Now, we can see that the fusion and fission process is also dissimilar in the way that fission is the separation of the heavy unstable nuclei into two lighter nuclei. Whereas, fusion is the phase in which two light nuclei basically fuse to produce heavy nuclei.