[HN Gopher] Born secret - the heavy burden of bomb physics
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       Born secret - the heavy burden of bomb physics
        
       Author : pseudolus
       Score  : 54 points
       Date   : 2021-04-19 20:06 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
        
       | Gauge_Irrahphe wrote:
       | Is this the reason why the obviously wrong calculation that
       | fusion ends with iron is hammered into everyone?
        
         | XorNot wrote:
         | Why is it obviously wrong?
        
           | gct wrote:
           | You can fuse above iron but you spend energy to do it instead
           | of releasing energy I guess?
        
           | adrian_b wrote:
           | I do not know what the other poster had in mind.
           | 
           | While fusion does not end at iron 56 (whose nucleus has the
           | lowest mass per nucleon), the quantities of heavier nuclei
           | produced by fusion decrease very steeply with increasing
           | atomic mass, becoming low beyond the isotopes of nickel, very
           | low beyond the isotopes of zinc and negligible beyond the
           | isotopes of germanium.
           | 
           | The elements heavier than zinc are produced mostly or
           | completely by other kinds of reactions, e.g. neutron capture.
        
       | petermcneeley wrote:
       | Note this is not about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Born
        
       | 8bitsrule wrote:
       | Article left this one out:
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Progressive#United_States_....
        
         | DoctorOetker wrote:
         | a more direct link:
         | 
         | https://progressive.org/magazine/november-1979-issue/
        
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       (page generated 2021-04-19 23:00 UTC)