What do we think of when we think of nuclear? Radiation, explosion, bomb... all the stereotypical cons of nuclear power. Mr. Bender showed us a few clips concerning nuclear power and bombs: The Simpsons (in which a person glows very brightly due to continued exposure to nuclear power), The Sum of All Fears, and a clip from Indiana Jones (in which Indiana hides in a lead lined fridge to save himself from a nuclear bomb). Later in class, we learned of some of the pros of nuclear power and how helpful is could be, as is exemplified by the power plant in New York.
We viewed newspaper articles in class. One of the articles was about Iran, and their new uranium enriching machine. Iran can now process uranium faster, which means they'll have lots more uranium-235 on their hands. This was the cause of much commotion and protests from other nations, as this will make creating nuclear power that much easier for Iran ):
So what makes nuclear power so powerful?
It had all to do with heat, with the nuclear binding energy (NBE).
And the famous equation E=mc^2.
E=energyc=3.0x10^8
When the electrons, protons, and neutrons do not add up to mass of an atom, the mass deficit has been used as NBE. To calculate the NBE, you need only to plug in the mass deficit into the eqaution E=mc^2. Because c is such a great number, the tiniest mass losses can result in huge releases of energy.
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