this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
907 points (96.6% liked)

Memes

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Splitting Helium doesn't release energy.

[–] [email protected] 95 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Disclaimer: this post has not been verified for accuracy

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

SPREADING MISSINFORMATION ONLINE!

based

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Who's this "Miss Information"?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't know, but I heard she's spreading.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

She really gets around, if you know what I mean.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

minor spelling mistake 😔

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the joke would work with Radon though.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

IIRC, Radon hasn't been proven to be a noble gas. Xenon is downright promiscuous compared to the other noble gases, and some chemists think that trend continues into radon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

And when you trap a xenon inside a C60 cage and start stuffing other things in there, the chemistry gets really weird.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I mean, it's in the column. Close enough.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

People across the board think that they will never need any math or science after leaving school. That's how you get jokes that anyone who was not asleep in physics would not have created.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Splitting a random atom wouldn't cause a chain reaction anyway. It's just a meme, lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

....I need to know more. We can just break open helium all Willy nilly? What's the biggest atom we can safely split?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Atoms lighter than iron take energy to split, and release energy when fusing. For atoms heavier than iron, it's the opposite.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You lose energy if you split or fuse it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It extinguishes the stars it forms in. Once you have enough Iron, and the amount is actually quite small compared to the rest of the mass of the star, that triggers a nova. This is due to Iron needing extra energy to either fuse or fission.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Close, the maximum binding energy per atomic mass unit is iron-56, but splitting heavier atoms does not guarrentee releasing energy. If you consider the graph of specific bonding energy against atomic mass, then also consider that you need two numbers that add up to the original mass, it is clear that you need approximately more than 100u to release energy on fission.

Atomic binding energy graph