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TII
AINA II GOSOPHY
traicd sources of nuclcar cncrgy ATOM IN WAR
The requirenient to start the fision process of U-235 and also the two man-made elements menlioned abovc (all these being known as nuclear fucls). is simple All that is necessary for the spontancous combustion, to use a familiar phrase of any one of the three atomic fuels is to assemble a lump of a certain weighi known as critical mass which is between tcs and thirty bilograms Thus would mean that a lump or any of the three atomic suels weighing ten or thirty hilograms (exact nass is a secret) would explode automatically and releasc an explosive force of 20 million limes greater than that of TNT, (on an equal weight basıs) Such a spontaneous combusuon destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th & 9th August 1945 In a conventional A-bomb a critical mass is assembled by a tining mechanism that brings together, let us say one-lenth and nine-tenths of a critical mass in the last split second
Long before it was discovered llat vast amounts of energy could be liberated by the fission of the nuclear of U-235, scientists had hnown that fusion of four atoms of hydrogen into one atoni of helium would release enormous amounts of energy In 1938 slightly before the discovery of uranium fission was annexed in Germany, Dr Bethe had published his famous hypothesis about the fusion of four hydrogen atonis to form helium in the sun This provided the first satisfactory explanation of the mechanism that enables the sun to radiate away staggering amounts of energy in space every second While Dr Bethe was the first to work out the fine details of the process of hydrogen fusion as source of the sun's radiance Prof
