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223: Oppenheimer & The Science of Atomic Bombs

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The Exponential Growth of Nuclear Energy

On average, such a vision of a Uranium 235 atom produces about 2.5 new neutrons. If all released neutrons are absorbed by new uranium 235 atoms and exponentially growing chain reaction sets in, right? So that means that if all of them are absorbed, let's say like two or three, you know, the releases two or releases three. That means that one atom being split, boom, goes boom, splits another two atoms and then they'll each split like two or four other atoms. And then all of them will eat split two or three other atoms, boom, chain reaction, there's exponential growth. You've got yourself a bomb. Yeah.

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