Abstract
We live in a dangerous world of fission weapons of kilotons and fusion weapons of megatons. We pray the international system will prevent their use, but we know that cannot be guaranteed. The fission age began in 1932, when James Chadwick discovered the neutron. A beam of 5.7 MeV alpha particles from a radioactive polonium source interacted with a beryllium foil of9Be to make13C that quickly decayed into12C and a neutron. The neutrons then passed through a thin layer of paraffin wax, knocking-out protons that were detected in an ionization chamber
Our world faces a crisis as yet unperceived by those possessing power to make great decisions for good or evil. The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything, save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
(Albert Einstein 1946)
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The carbon–nitrogen fusion process is more likely on the sun, but it gives the same result.
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Hafemeister, D. (2014). Nuclear Weapons. In: Physics of Societal Issues. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9272-6_1
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