Question

During early research in nuclear energy, why were scientists surprised that the products from splitting a uranium nucleus had less mass than the reactants? They expected that the large release of energy would cause an increase in mass. Up to that time, only chemical changes were known to form less mass than they started with. All known changes always started and ended with the same amount of mass. Other known nuclear changes resulted in the same mass of products as reactants.

Answer 1

The scientist gets surprised In terms of the masses of the subatomic particles, scientists anticipated the rule of conservation of mass to apply to nuclear fission and it got failed.

What is nuclear power?

The utilization of nuclear reactions to generate energy is known as a nuclear power. Nuclear fission, nuclear decay, and nuclear fusion processes are all sources of nuclear energy.

Nuclear power facilities currently produce the great bulk of the electricity generated by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium.

In terms of the masses of the subatomic particles, scientists anticipated the rule of conservation of mass to apply to nuclear fission.

An atom's mass is not equal to the sum of the masses of the subatomic particles that make it up in actuality.

The energy that bonds the subatomic particles is the reason behind this. When a link is broken, the mass of the energy of the bonds is lost, resulting in what we now refer to as a mass defect.

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