Nuclear Reactions Fusion and Fission

TABLE 2.1 The masses of subatomic particles in different units. 

Example 2-2. Calculate the nuclear binding energy of a carbon-12 atom. 

Solution. Carbon-12 consists of six protons, six neutrons, and six electrons and weighs exactly 12.0000 amu. 

The transmutation of the elements has long been the goal of the alchemists. In 1917, Ernest Rutherford was the first person to realize that dream. Rutherford converted nitrogen-14 into oxygen-17 and a proton by bombarding a sample of with a stream of alpha particles, according to the nuclear reaction shown in Equation (2.2)  

Relative cosmic abundances of the elements, as compared to that of hydrogen. [Reproduced by permission from Astronomy Today, Chaisson and McMillan, 8th ed., Pearson, 2014.] 

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